sorry. that is what I meant. the weight that the scale displays should be 1 N. but the answer says that it is not. So I'm still a bit confused. Because the hint says:
"It makes no difference how the ball and fluid are arranged inside the beaker. If there are no external forces, the weight...
ooh, I see my problem. I set the pivot to the left END of the bottom bottom so I got really confused. I changed the pivot point and used a slightly different method setting the center of mass of the bottom book to x1 and got -L/3
and then did L/2-L/3=L/6
That's the same answer as yours. YAY =D...
Thanks for replying! I have some questions on how you arrived at the answer.
1) how did you get those center of gravity positions for each book
2) what did you mean by "to other side of the pivot point"
and how do you treat the three books as one unitary mass if we only have the center of...
Homework Statement
3 identical books, each with length L, are stacked over the edge of a table. The top book overhangs the middle book by 1/2L and the middle book overhangs the bottom book by 1/4L. How much can the bottom book be allowed to overhang the edge of the table without the books...