Why does Harry's vacation start early?

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Harry the painter's vacation starts early due to a critical mistake in securing his safety rope. Initially, the rope supports him without breaking because it is anchored in a way that distributes his weight, allowing it to handle more than its breaking point. However, when he ties the rope to a flagpole, it only has one point of support, leading to a direct load of 500 N, which exceeds the rope's breaking limit of 300 N. This results in the rope snapping and causing Harry to fall. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding static equilibrium and the forces at play in such scenarios.
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Harry the painter swings year after year from his bosun's chair. His weight is 500 N and the rope, unknown to him, has a breaking point of 300 N. Why doesn't the rope break when he is supported as shown to the left below? One day Harry is painting near a flagpole, and, for a change, he ties the free end of the rope to the flagpole instead of to his chair as shown to the right. Why did Harry end up taking his vacation early?


. How does the direction of a friction force compare with the velocity of a sliding object?
 
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parker21 said:
Harry the painter swings year after year from his bosun's chair. His weight is 500 N and the rope, unknown to him, has a breaking point of 300 N. Why doesn't the rope break when he is supported as shown to the left below? One day Harry is painting near a flagpole, and, for a change, he ties the free end of the rope to the flagpole instead of to his chair as shown to the right. Why did Harry end up taking his vacation early?


. How does the direction of a friction force compare with the velocity of a sliding object?
I don't know where your diagram is but I suspect that in the first case the rope is hooked over something and connects to the chair in two places (in which case, each holding so it can support 600 N) and in the second case he just has one piece of rope which breaks when he puts 500 N force on it.

AM
 
AM you are insightful. This is question 34 from chapter 4 of Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics text. And your assumption is correct.

Parker21: there is no friction in this problem (at least it is not significant) and you do not compare forces with velocities, and anyway nothing is sliding since this is a "static equilibrium" problem. Read your textbook section 4.7 .
 

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