What Is The Reading Scale Of The Elevator Problem?
A student of mass 50.0 kg decides to test Newton’s laws of motion by standing on a bathroom scale placed on the floor of an elevator. Assume that the scale reads in newtons. Determine the scale reading when the elevators traveling upward with a constant speed of 3.0 m/s. Then find it traveling upward, accelerating at -1.0 m/s/s.
for the accelerating at -1 m/s/s, it is traveling upward but slowing down as it goes up, acceleration is change in velocity and doesn’t always mean going faster
I love this question. The bathroom scale reads the normal force exerted on the person.
In both cases the forces acting on the person are
Fn up
mg down
Taking up as positive
Fn -mg = ma
In case 1 what is a? hint CONSTANT velocity?
In case 2, which is weird wording, if it is accelerating upward at -1m/s/s it is actually accelerating down (but it still might be travelling up, how??)
At any rate, since we chose up as positive a =-1.
put in the numbers.
ps for case 1 a=0 why???