Recent content by phrankle

Divide the weight of the load by the number of ropes supporting it? That doesn't seem right to me. I'm looking for a quick way to identify the Ideal Mechanical Advantage (IMA) = output force / input force.

http://www.getofftheinternet.net/pulley.png How would you go about calculating the mechanical advantage of this pulley system?

When finding the polarization of the dielectric portion between the two plates using P=\epsilon_{0} X_{e}E, why would we use the E-field in the air portion (as is done in the solutions manual and here: http://www.getofftheinternet.net/s_10077.pdf ) instead of solving for the E-field in the...

Thanks for the answer. I understand that it could go either way, but, "being lazy", why would you choose x and y as independent? "In mathematics, an independent variable is any of the arguments, i.e. "inputs", to a function. These are contrasted with the dependent variable, which is the value...

This probably has a really simple answer. Forr u=x^2-y^2 and v=x^2+y^2 x and y are apparently the dependent variables. But the independent variable is the input while the dependent variable is the output, so since u=f1(x,y) and v=f2(x,y) shouldn't they (u and v) be the dependent variables?

For solving a series solution near a regular singular point with the Frobenius method, why is it that the indices of summation derivatives aren't shifted? For example, in my textbook and lecture notes y = \sumA_{}nx^{}n+r from n=0 to infinity y' = \sum(n+r)A_{}nx^{}n+r-1 from n=0 to...