Recent content by MrLobster

I was watching an experiment that I don't understand. The professor turned a hand crank that generated electricity to light up a bulb. There was also a switch to turn the bulb on and off. When the bulb was on the crank became harder to turn. I don't really understand why that is. Did it...

collision problem I came across this thread while trying to do basically the same kind of computer simulation. I found an algorithm that seems to work for billiard balls that have the same mass and am trying to figure out how to modify it to take differing masses into account. I understand...

How do you sqaure a vector? Is it the magnitude of the vector times the vector?

Thank you, this problem is clear to me now.

Do I need to know the tension in the string or the accelerations of the objects to do this? I was going to use the tension of the string to figure out the accelerations on the objects which should be equal since they are connected by a string. Hmmm. Can you verify if I'm on the right track...

I understand that if a string is holding up a hanging mass then the magnitude of the tension in the string is mass * gravity. The other end of the string is tied to an object on a flat surface (after being redirected by a frictionless pully). If the tension force is great enough to...