Yay
Thanks a lot! I missed that square for the first part - feel dumb now for agonizing over that for so long and not being able to figure it out ^_^
Thanks so much!
ok, so I have these two equations
.5Kx^2 = .5m1v1^2 + .5m2v2^2
Pi = Pf, 0 = m1v1 + m2v2
I solve the second one for v2 so I can plug it into the top one and solve for v1
solving the bottom one gets me: -m1v1-/m2 = v2; plug that into the top and you get: .5Kx^2 = .5m1v1^2 + .5m2(-m1v1-/m2)^2...
Homework Statement
A massless spring of spring constant 20 N/m is placed between two carts. Cart 1 has a mass M1 = 5 kg and Cart 2 has a mass M2 = 3 kg. The carts are pushed toward one another until the spring is compressed a distance 1.3 m. The carts are then released and the spring pushes...