Question

As a hiker in Glacier National Park, you are looking for a way to keep the bears from getting at your supply of food. You find a campground that is near an outcropping of ice from one of the glaciers. Part of the ice outcropping forms a 47.5° slope up to a vertical cliff. You decide that this is an ideal place to hang your food supply as the cliff is too tall for a bear to reach it. You put all of your food into a burlap sack, tie an unstretchable rope to the sack, and tie another bag full of rocks to the other end of the rope to act as an anchor. You currently have 20.5 kg of food left for the rest of your trip so you put 20.5 kg of rocks in the anchor bag to balance it out. What happens when you lower the food bag over the edge and let go of the anchor bag? The weight of the bags and the rope are negligible. The ice is smooth enough to be considered frictionless.

a)The anchor bag is on a slope so the food bag will drop, pulling the anchor bag up.
b)The anchor bag is on a slope so it will pull the food bag back up.
c)The motion of the food bag cannot be determined.
d)Nothing. The bags have the same mass so they will not move.
AND!!!What will be the acceleration of the bags when you let go of the anchor bag?

Answer 1

d) Nothing. The bags have the same mass so they will not move.

Step-by-step explanation:

This is the answer that best describes what would happen if you lower the food bag over the edge and let go of the anchor bag. In this example, the hiker placed all his food into a burlap sack that weights 20.5 kg of food. On the other hand, he also puts 20.5 kg of rocks in the other bag that he will tie at the other end of the rope. This will act as anchor. As the two bags have the same mass, they will not move. The second bag will work as an anchor in the way the hiker expected.