I had forgotten about this treasure trove of excellent physics problems until I read Paul Salomon’s compelling post on his “imbalance problems”. As I thought about coming up with my own imbalance problems, I remembered this puzzler involving an infinite Atwood’s machine.
I am going to bed tonight thinking about how I could use an infinite Atwood’s machine approach to create an interesting imbalance puzzle. This is what I have so far:
Order the shapes by mass.
It occurred to me that all of these resources are great for my students as they seek inspiration for their own posts during our two-week blog project.
Problem 41 seems particularly tractable to a multivariable calculus analysis:
Enjoy!
I am a math and science teacher at a boarding school in Delaware.
scenic-science + thematic-mathematics | same 
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