Question

A roller coaster weighing 8,000N descends a 60 degrees slope. What is the roller coaster's rate of acceleration (ignoring friction and air resistance).

I know the answer to this and the steps to the answer, but I don't understand how exactly to do it. I wanna go into a physics career, so I need the steps really broken down and explained

Answer 1

we have to find the force along the direction of the slope, which is acting on the roller coaster, like below:

Answer 2

from the drawing above, the force acting on the roller coaster, has the subsequent magnitude:
\(mg \sin \theta\)

Answer 3

so, the corresponding acceleration is:
\[a = \frac{F}{m} = \frac{{mg\sin \theta }}{m} = g\sin \theta \]
wher \(g=9.81\) m/sec^2

Answer 4

where*

Answer 5

Oh okay, wow that clears it up a lot! So it is basically just substituting in for Newton's 2nd law? correct?

Answer 6

yes! we have to apply the famous equation: \(F=m \cdot a\)

Answer 7

Okay awesome! Thank you so much! That was a lot simpler than I was making it haha :)

Answer 8

:)