Calculating Acceleration and Tension in a Pulley System

[Warrzie]

This one has me clueless. The problem reads:

"An object of mass m₁ on a frictionless horizontal table is connected to an object of mass m₂ through a very light pulley P₁ and a light fixed pulley P₂."

It wants me to state the relationship between the accelerations, with a₁ and a₂ corresponding to m₁ and m₂ respectively.

It then wants the tension in both strings, and finally the acceleration of each block in terms of m₁, g, and m₂

I've stared at the attached figure for a while and don't even understand how m₂'s string is connect to the floating pulley, or if that pulley even has an effect on the accelerations/tension. I want to say that a₁=a₂ since the blocks are attached to each other.

Any hints?

 

[radou]

You may want to put a link to the image instead of an attachment, since these usually don't work.

 

[Astronuc]

I've stared at the attached figure for a while and don't even understand how m2's string is connect to the floating pulley, or if that pulley even has an effect on the accelerations/tension. I want to say that a1=a2 since the blocks are attached to each other.

The acceleration of m₂ = acceleration of pulley P1. On has to determine the acceleration of m1 and the acceleration of P1. When P1 moves (translates) $\Delta{x}$, by what distance does m₁ translate? One may assume the string tied to m₂ is fixed to the axis of P1 and is of fixed length.