Homework Help: PHYSICS - please check my work

Posted by SAMIR on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 9:46am.

pete and john play a game of tug war on a frictionless icy curface. pete weighs 539 N and john weights 392 N. during the course of the game, john accelerates toward pete at a rate of 3 m/s^2. Sarah decideds to join the game as well. Now pete pulls on Sarah with a force of 45.0N [E] and john pulls on her with a force of 25N [N]. What's Sarah's resultant acceleration, if she weighs 294 N?

m=294N (this equals 30kg)
Fjohn=25 N [N]
Fpete=45 N [E]

Fnet=Fjohn+Fpete
=25^2 + 45^2
=51N

a=F/m
=51/30kg
=1.7m/s^2

Now, Im just confused about what angle to solve for. My diagram looks like this: have an arrowed line going west, to represent Pete and then from that arrow's head, I have an arrow going North to represent John. If this is correct, then I would solve for Tan, with the opposide side=25N and the the adjacent side equaling 45N, to give an angle of 29degrees. Is this correcct?

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