Atwood Machine
Atwood Machine - two objects are connected by a light string over a massless pulley
Ideal pulleys are frictionless and massless (they add no inertia to the system)
Tension is constant in a light string passing over an ideal pulley
Solving Atwood Machine Problems
Adopt a sign convention for positive and negative motion
Draw a free body diagram for each mass
Write Newton's Second Law equations for each mass
Solve for unknowns
Alternate Solution
Analyze the system as a whole
Mass and Pulley on a Ramp
