Question

The tension in a 2 m length of string that whirls a 1 kg mass at 4 m/s in a horizontal circle is calculated to be 8 N. How do you alculate the tension for the following case: twice the mass?

Answer 1

`16"N"`

Explanation:

The tension in the string is balanced by the centripetal force.

This is given by `F=(mv^2)/r`

This is equal to `8"N"`.

So you can see that, without doing any calculations, doubling `m` must double the force and hence the tension to `16"N"`.