Newtonian mechanics covers the discussion of the movement of classical bodies under the influence of forces by making use of Newton’s three laws. For more general discussion of energy, momentum conservation etc., use classical-mechanics, for Newton’s description of gravity, use newtonian-gravity.

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Newton's Laws Question [closed]

Two identical bodies m1 = m2 their masses = m laid on On top of a horizontal table as shown. Between the entities There is static friction and kinetic Respectively. External force F On the upper body ...
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4answers
202 views

Terminal velocity of all falling objects is same?

Ideally 2 objects of different mass and weight will hit the floor at same time because they face same gravitational pull and accelerate. Will the terminal velocity of both objects be same also? and ...
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3answers
81 views

Violation of Newton's 3rd law

I'm just expressing my guess. Let two particles A and B experiences forces $F_1$ and -$F_2$ between them and let guess also there are two observer, one is stationary and other is moving with ...
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33 views

Why the screwdriver roll?

I am trying my level best to give this screwdriver a vertical push only, but it is going in a circular path. I thought of uneven friction due to non-uniform normal reaction...what do you think? I have ...
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2answers
53 views

Does the slip-stick phenomenon have any application?

The slip-stick phenomenon is present all around us, be it the noise of car breaks or in earthquakes. But does it have any real-life application?
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1answer
31 views

How does tension apply torque on a pulley?

How is tension in a string able to apply torque on a string? How does string itself able to apply a force on pulley? What is happening inside the pulley? The pulley has a mass m and is a disc .
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1answer
40 views

Escape velocity for hydrogen molecules

The question: At what temperature is the RMS speed of Hydrogen molecules equal to the escape speed from the earth's surface? Values of radius of earth($r$) and gas constant $R$ has been supplied ...
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Length Traveled from Complete Stop [closed]

A one-meter long rifle fires a bullet at a velocity of 800 m/s. What is the average acceleration experienced by the bullet when it is fired? (Hint: You need to find the time it takes the bullet to ...
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2answers
193 views

How large can planets or moons appear?

In many artistic impressions or movies there are pictures or scenes where the sky is filled with an enormous moon (as seen from a planet) or vice versa. I wonder if there is an upper limit to the ...
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Spring damper model does not work very well [migrated]

I'm trying to model a spring damper system from a tutorial that I've found on this site. If I use the exact same parameters as the ones in the tutorial the system is not stable. I've downloaded the ...
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1answer
41 views

Pulley system with rope

Two masses $m_1$ and $m_2$ are connected through a weighty, uniform and an unstretchable rope of length $L$. The surface is frictionless. Masses of the objects are $m_1=m$, $m_2=\frac{2}{3}m$, mass ...
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2answers
65 views

Intuition contradicting answer for calculating pressure

I have a cylindrical container say of some base area $A$. The atmospheric pressure is $P_0$. The cylinder is moved at an acceleration $a$ horizontally right. I need to find which base would have to ...
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2answers
50 views

Momentum, Impulse and Newton's Second Law of Motion

Newton formulated his Second Law as such: $$\sum{\vec{F}} = \frac{\delta \vec{p}}{\delta t}$$ and of course, $\vec{p} = m \vec{v}$. Why is it that if the net force $\sum \vec{F}$ is constant (which ...
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1answer
56 views

How do determine the equation of motion of slinky?

I'm trying to analyze the forces exerted to slinky. First, I've divided both ends. The red vector is the force exerted by slinky itself, and the green vector is gravitational force. Force exerted ...
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1answer
37 views

Problem with a rotating frame of reference on the South pole

Consider this problem: A high-speed train is traveling at a constant 150 m/s (about 300 mph) on a straight horizontal track across the south pole. Find the angle between a plumb line suspended ...
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2answers
75 views

How can a car's engine move the car?

Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object at rest or uniform motion tends to stay in that state of motion unless an unbalanced, external force acts on it. Say if I were in a car and I push ...
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1answer
61 views

Friction on a conveyor belt

I was surfing through an Olympiad paper and I was caught with this question. A block of mass 1 kg is stationary with respect to a conveyor belt that is accelerating with $1\, \tfrac{m}{s^2}$ ...
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4answers
231 views

How can I determine whether the mass of an object is evenly distributed?

How can I determine whether the mass of an object is evenly distributed without doing any permanent damage? Suppose I got all the typical lab equipment. I guess I can calculate its center of mass and ...
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0answers
59 views

Effective mass in Spring-with-mass/mass system

Suppose you have a particle of mass $m$ fixed to a spring of mass $m_0$ that, in turn, is fixed to some wall. I'm trying to calculate the effective mass $m'$ that appears in the law of motion of the ...
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1answer
27 views

Static friction force on a block in a tunnel

Linked to this Comparing Static Frictions Suppose there is a cuboidal vertical tunnel , and a cubical block in it such that all surface of the block are in contact with the four walls of the ...
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1answer
36 views

If An Object Explodes With A Force, What Force Are Fragments Given?

So let's say for example I have an object with 5kg of mass. It explodes with a force of 500N. The object fragments into four fragments: a 0.5kg, a 1kg, a 1.5kg and a 2kg object. What force does ...
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1answer
67 views

Vector cross product of $\mathbf{r}$ and $\ddot{\mathbf{r}}$ in polar coordinates

I'm struggling with the following question: Question 6 A planet of mass $m$ moves under the gravitational attraction of a central star of mass $M$. The equation of motion of the planet is ...
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19 views

newton's laws - involving block and conveyor belt [closed]

i was surfing through a physics book when i encountered this problem- A block of mass 1 kg is stationary with respect to a conveyor belt that is accelerating with 1 m/s^2 upwards at an angle of ...
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33 views

Lagrangian with a general constraint [closed]

Can any body help me out to solve this problem? I am familiar with mechanism of Lagrangian and I can solve some problems with constraints but this one is really hard to solve.
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4answers
126 views

Is it possible to whirl a point mass (attacted to a string) around in a horizontal circular motion *above* my hand?

I'm studying circular motion and centripetal force in college currently and there is a very simple question but confuses me (our teacher doesn't know how to explain either :/), so I hope we can sort ...
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1answer
26 views

A rod of length $L$ & mass $M$ is rotating in a circle about one end then calculate tension in the rod at a distance $x$ from the support

A rod of length L & mass M is rotating in a circle about one end then calculate tension in the rod at a distance 'x' from the support ? For its solution why should we take mass of L-x portion of ...
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1answer
39 views

Another Inclined plane question

I did the FBD, and I found too many variables which are not eliminating...Moreover, I believe this question is based on kinetic and static friction. But, $\mu$ here is ambiguously defined...How Do I ...
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3answers
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The motion of a spring

I have a question about the force set by this spring, I saw many times that $\overrightarrow{F}=-Kx\overrightarrow{i}$. I'm asking why not using $\overrightarrow{F}=Kx\overrightarrow{i}$ without the ...
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1answer
51 views

Comparing Static Frictions

In this figure, which of the static frictional forces will be more? My aim isn't to solve this particular problem but to learn how is static friction distributed . Since each of the rough-surfaces ...
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3answers
105 views

Moment of Inertia (triangular plate)

I want to generalize the formula for the MOI of a triangular plate (sides $a,b,c$) about an axis passing through mid point of one sides and perpendicular to it's plane . The mass of plate $M$ is ...
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2answers
58 views

Massless string Paradox

If we introduce the notion of a massless string to denote the fact that net force on a massless string will always be $0$, since it is massless . How can these massless strings ever accelerate when ...
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1answer
57 views

Work done by Static friction

Here $v1$ is relative to the block on which sphere is pure rolling but static friction isn't $0$ as of now . In the following diagram, is work done by static friction $0$ ?, since the point of ...
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1answer
46 views

Boundary conditions on wave equation

I am having trouble understanding the boundary conditions. From the solutions, the first is that $D_1(0, t) = D_2(0, t)$ because the rope can't break at the junction. The second is that ...
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4answers
101 views

Potential energy sign conventions

Almost every book on physics that I read have some weird and non-clear explanations regarding the potential energy. Ok, I do understand that if we integrate a force over some path, we'll get a ...
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2answers
69 views

Centripetal Force Acceleration

Suppose you want to perform a uniform circular motion . Then a body performing uniform circular motion horizontally needs an acceleration $= \frac{v^2}{r}$ at each point on the circular path with ...
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1answer
55 views

Physics of the point of contact for a spinning top

I understand how spinning tops don't tip over, cf. e.g. this and this Phys.SE questions. What I'm more interested is in identifying the factors that determine the direction the spinning top moves to? ...
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1answer
67 views

In tennis, why does topspin serve bounce higher than flat serve?

When receiving servers (while playing tennis), I've noticed that the tennis ball seems to bounce up higher on me when the server uses a topspin serve than when the server hits a flat serve. Why is ...
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51 views

A slender rod with a ball at the end

A slender rod is attached to a block accelerating horizontally. The rod is free to rotate without friction. At the end of the rod is a ball. As the block accelerates, the slender rod will be deviated ...
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52 views

Object on an inclined plane

I was solving a question about inclined planes, and it got me thinking: Imagine a scenario where, an object is on an inclined plane and the inclined plane is on a frictionless surface, and is itself ...
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4answers
114 views

What do people actually mean by “rolling without slipping”?

I have never understood what's the meaning of the sentence "rolling without slipping". Let me explain. I'll give an example. Yesterday my mechanics professor introduced some concepts of rotational ...
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1answer
149 views

How reliant is the Solar System on being exactly the way it is?

We know that all objects with mass exert forces on all other objects of mass such that $$ F = \frac{GMm}{R^2}.$$ And as others have discussed the planets do interfere with each other ...
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1answer
58 views

Tension in a closed loop around an object, carrying stuff

Sorry when this sounds like a first year physics homework question, but it's actually not. It arose during a discussion regarding safe practices for rock climbing anchors... So here we go: Imagine ...
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0answers
46 views

What force does the seat exert on the rider at the top and bottom of the ride? [closed]

A 75 kg person rides a Ferris wheel which is rotating uniformly. The centripetal force acting on the person is 45 N. What force does the seat exert on the rider at the top and the bottom of the ride?
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1answer
45 views

A theoretical problem on Mechanics [closed]

Two particles with masses $m_1$ and $m_2$ are moving in 3D space with some Cartesian coordinate system. There are known the laws of motion of these particles, i.e. the position vectors $\vec{r_1}(t)$ ...
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1answer
99 views

Chain of balls on an inclined plane

Suppose we have some inclined plane, and there is some chain of balls of length $l$ and mass $m$ lying on it. No friction at all in the system. 1) What is $x_0$ (the vertical hanging part of the ...
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1answer
64 views

Centripetal force and circular motion

I have a doubt, say when a body moves in a circular loop, there are basically two types of acceleration acting on the object. One is the linear acceleration which is basically tangent to the circle, ...
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2answers
60 views

Why is potential energy negative when orbiting in a gravitational field?

I had to do a problem, and part of it was to find the mechanical energy of satellite orbiting around mars, and I had all of the information I needed. I thought the total mechanical energy would be the ...
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1answer
82 views

Initial position and velocity of rocket to escape earth's gravity

I'm trying to numerically simulate a spacecraft trajectory between earth and mars. I already wrote the solar system model where the sun is at the origin of the x,y,z plane Earth and Mars are orbiting ...
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5answers
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Why Won't a Tight Cable Ever Be Fully Straight?

I posted this picture of someone on a zipline on Facebook. One of my friends saw it and asked this question, so he could try to calculate the speed at which someone on the zipline would be going ...
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Work And Energy Question [closed]

$H = 3\text{ m}$,$m=2\text{ kg}$ The right side is rough. I want to figure: what is the coefficient of friction $\mu$? How high and exceed the maximum return on the plane right body? I know ...

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