- #1
Mark Nussbaum
Moved from a technical forum, so homework template missing
For some reason I'm really struggling to get a correct answer on this problem
"A horizontal clothesline is tied between 2 poles, 20 meters apart.
When a mass of 3 kilograms is tied to the middle of the clothesline, it sags a distance of 4 meters.
What is the magnitude of the tension on the ends of the clothesline?"
Work:
Fg = 3kg*9.81m/s^2 = 29.43
found θ with arctan(4m/10m) = 21.8°
moving the origin onto the point on the forces I then used component tree to solve for the y-direction where
Ft*sin(21.8)+Ft*sin(21.8)-Fg=0,
and ignored x since they would cancel out.
the answer I got was Ft = 39.623N
when I work in reverse the magnitude gives me the correct #s and everything adds to 0.
It's been a long time since I've done this kind of physics so maybe I'm missing something dumb here. But I can't find it.
"A horizontal clothesline is tied between 2 poles, 20 meters apart.
When a mass of 3 kilograms is tied to the middle of the clothesline, it sags a distance of 4 meters.
What is the magnitude of the tension on the ends of the clothesline?"
Work:
Fg = 3kg*9.81m/s^2 = 29.43
found θ with arctan(4m/10m) = 21.8°
moving the origin onto the point on the forces I then used component tree to solve for the y-direction where
Ft*sin(21.8)+Ft*sin(21.8)-Fg=0,
and ignored x since they would cancel out.
the answer I got was Ft = 39.623N
when I work in reverse the magnitude gives me the correct #s and everything adds to 0.
It's been a long time since I've done this kind of physics so maybe I'm missing something dumb here. But I can't find it.