Homework Help: physics help 4

Posted by kelsey on Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 11:54pm.

An astronaut on a small planet wishes to measure the local value of g by timing pulses traveling down a wire which has a large mass suspended from it. Assume that the wire has a mass of 4.10 g and a length of 1.60 m and that a 3.00 kg mass is suspended from it. A pulse requires 64.3 ms to traverse the length of the wire. Calculate the local g from these data. (You may neglect the mass of the wire when calculating the tension in it.)
? m/s2

physics help 4 - drwls, Monday, November 10, 2008 at 2:41am
Get the wave speed from the ratio
(wire length)/64.3*10^-3 s

The wave speed equals the square root of (Wire tension)/(wire lineal density)

Solve for the wire tension, T. That will equal the weight (in Newtons) of the 3 kg mass, from which you can derive g on that planet.

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