Acceleration and Tension Problem from Introductory Physics

Animation 1

Animation 2

Animation 3

Animation 4

Animation 5

Animation 6

Please wait for the animation to completely load.

A 10-kg mass is attached via a massless string over a massless pulley to a hand (position is given in meters and time is given in seconds). The masses in each animation are identical.  Restart.

  1. Rank the animations according to the acceleration of the mass from greatest to least (positive is up).
  2. Rank the animations according to the tension in the string from greatest to least (positive is up).

Ties in () please.

  1. Calculate the acceleration of the mass in each animation.
  2. Calculate the tension of the string in each animation.

 

© Copyright 2003 Mario Belloni and Wolfgang Christian*.
 

*This exercise was adapted from an original Ranking Task Exercise which appears in the book Ranking Task Exercises in Physics, T. O' Kuma, D. Maloney, and C. Hieggelke.