- #1
sona1177
- 173
- 1
Homework Statement
For the following problem:
A piece of balsa wood with density .50 g/cm^3 is released under water. What is its initial acceleration?
I have gotten this far:
Fnet=Fbuoy-mg
-ma=p(water)gV(displaced)- p(wood)g(Vdisplaced)
=(p(water)-p(wood))gV=-ma
where p="rho"
But in this equation I have three unknowns: mass of wood, Volume displaced, and the acceleration
How do I get around this? I've tried using equations involving Specific Gravity but that doesn't help, it leads be down an unproductive road of manipulating equations that don't have solutions because there are too many unknowns.