# Homework Help: Acceleration Measurement

1. Mar 14, 2006

### John O' Meara

A body of mass .5kg, rests on a smooth horizontal table, and is connected by a string, which passes over the edge of the table, with a mass of .02kg hanging freely. find the acceleration of the system.
My attempt: let the tension of the piece of string between the table edge and the .5kg body be T directed towards the table edge. This tension is the same as the tension between the table edge and the suspended .02kg body, yes,no?
Since the string between the table edge and the .5kg body in not horizontal, the Tension T has components, Tcos(theta) parallel to the table and Tsin(theta) perpendicular to the table, but the angle theta is unknown.
Thanks.

2. Mar 14, 2006

### Hootenanny

Staff Emeritus
As the table is frictionless I would assume that the only force acting is that of gravity. Hence the force acting on the system is $0.02g$. Can you go from here? Don't forget the total mass of the system is not 0.02kg.