acceleration and mass

• January 7th 2009, 12:00 AM
maeca
acceleration and mass
does mass affect acceleration of a body in a frictionless inclined plane?
• January 7th 2009, 12:12 AM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by maeca
does mass affect acceleration of a body in a frictionless inclined plane?

Try calculating the acceleration of an object of mass M down a slope inclined at an angle of $\theta$ to the horizontal and see for yourself ....
• January 7th 2009, 02:31 AM
maeca
dont know
i don't know how to find the acceleration in a frictionless inclined plane
• January 7th 2009, 03:05 AM
o_O
http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=inclinesj3.png

Look at the diagram. Since we are on a frictionless incline, the only force acting on the blue object along the incline is the component of the force of gravity ( $F_g$) parallel to it, i.e. $mg\sin \theta$).

So, the net force acting on the object along the incline is given by: $F_{\text{net}} = mg \sin \theta$

But what do we know about $F_{\text{net}}$ ? Newton's second law!
• January 7th 2009, 03:11 AM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by maeca
i don't know how to find the acceleration in a frictionless inclined plane

Do you have any experience solving these sorts of problems?

You can do the experiments at this website:

CalcTool: Object on a slope calculator

Give M different values and see what happens to the acceleration.