Ramanujan Redux

Sometimes, I like to remind myself that I used to know how to do physics pretty well…

A person of mass mA is holding on to one end of a pole while another person of mass 2mA is holding onto the other end while both of them are standing on ice. The pole has mass 3mA. They begin pulling towards each other such that they both have a velocity u with respect to the pole. Anyway, they eventually pass each other and each reaches the other side of the pole. When they have switched places, how far has the pole’s center of mass moved?

We’re going to assume that these people are on opposite sides of the pole (one on the left side, the other on the right). Work on it and click after this to find out the answer! Provide any insight or suggest some more fun problems in the comments.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Physics, Problem Solving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.