Ok I know the answer and the diagram but

[Revolver]

Here's the problem.

Five children are pushing on a snowball, each pushing with a force of 10 N. Each is pushing at an angle of 45 relative to his neighbor. What is the net push on the ball?

Ok my prof went over this problem in class but moved through it so fast that I didn't understand what he did. Here's what I have.

I draw a ball (the snowball) with 5 vectors at 45 degree angles to each other. This leads to the two vectors at opposite ends cancelling each other out, so I'm left with 3 vectors all 45 degrees to each other. Ok I know the left most vector and the right most vector are putting resistance on each other... but I'm not sure how he went about this,

He did 10 Sin 45 for the first vector, + 10 N, and then 10 sin 45 for the 3rd vector all summed up = 24.1 N.

but how do you know to do 10 sin 45?

 

[Kurdt]

Its all about resolving vectors by considering right angled triangles.

http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Svector.htm

 

[kyle8921]

I would first clarify the problem by asking for more information, such as the mass of the snowball and the direction it is being pushed. This will help determine the net force on the snowball.

Assuming the snowball is being pushed in a horizontal direction, the first step would be to draw a free body diagram for the snowball and label all the forces acting on it. In this case, there are five 10 N forces acting at 45 degree angles, resulting in a net force in the horizontal direction.

To find the horizontal component of each force, we use the trigonometric function sine (sin). This is because the forces are acting at an angle, and we only want to consider the component that is in the horizontal direction. So, for each force, we multiply the magnitude (10 N) by the sine of the angle (45 degrees) to find the horizontal component.

Once we have the horizontal components of each force, we can add them together to find the net force on the snowball. This is because forces in the same direction can be added together, while forces in opposite directions will cancel each other out.

In this case, the net force on the snowball would be 24.1 N, as calculated by your professor.

In summary, to determine the net push on the snowball, we need to consider the horizontal components of each force and add them together. The use of trigonometric functions, such as sine, is necessary because the forces are acting at an angle. I would suggest reviewing the concept of resolving forces into components and practicing with similar problems to improve your understanding.