I am stuck on a question that asks for the resultant force(magnitude + direction)
question says :
A rope is strung between a car and Joe, the car pulls on the rope with a force of 20,000 newton. joe pulls the rope with a force of 25,000N. what is the resulatant force?
dont u find the resultant force by adding them togather if the same, if not subtract force A- Force B wel.. then it would be 20,000-25,000 which is negative= -5,000 does that make since? or should it be 25,000-20,000?
To find the resultant force, you should add the forces together, regardless of whether they are in the same direction or not. The resultant force is the vector sum of all the forces acting on an object. In this case, the car is pulling with a force of 20,000 newtons, and Joe is pulling with a force of 25,000 newtons.
When adding vectors, you need to consider both magnitude and direction. In this case, the magnitudes of the forces are 20,000 N and 25,000 N, respectively.
To determine the direction, you need to assign positive and negative signs to the forces based on their orientation. Let's consider the car's pull to the right as positive, and Joe's pull to the left as negative.
So the resultant force can be calculated as:
Resultant force = 20,000 N (car's pull) + (-25,000 N) (Joe's pull)
Resultant force = 20,000 N - 25,000 N
Resultant force = -5,000 N
Therefore, the resultant force is -5,000 N. The negative sign indicates that it is in the opposite direction of the car's pull.