Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students

Boris Korsunsky
Citation: The Physics Teacher 52, 572 (2014); doi: 10.1119/1.4902213
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4902213
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/52/9?ver=pdfcov
Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers
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Physics Challenge for

Teachers and Students
w Defying gravity in a cavity
A small disc of mass m is held at rest at the edge of a hemispherical cavity made in a solid block of mass 3m. The
block is placed on a horizontal surface. The disc is released
and slides downward along the surface of the cavity. Find
the normal force acting on the block from the floor at the
moment the disc is at the bottom of the cavity. Neglect friction between all surfaces.

Boris Korsunsky, Column Editor

Weston High School, Weston, MA 02493

challenges@aapt.org

Daniel Mixson (Naval Academy Preparatory School,

Newport, RI)
Carl E. Mungan (U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis,
MD)
Pascal Renault (John Tyler Community College,
Midlothian, VA)
Joseph Rizcallah (Sagesse High School, Ain Saadeh,
Lebanon)
Ryan Yancey (Lancaster High School, Lancaster, CA)

Guidelines for contributors:

3m
We received many solutions to our September Challenge,
The Second Half of the Flight. Unfortunately, very few
of them came from students. We hope that our readers will
keep encouraging their students to participate.
We are pleased to recognize the following contributors:
Salvatore Basile (Universit degli Studi di Palermo,
Palermo, Italy)
Philip Blanco (Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA)
Don Easton (Lacombe, Alberta, Canada)
Gerald E. Hite (TAMUG, Galveston, TX)
Art Hovey (Galvanized Jazz Band, Milford, CT)
David Jones (Florida International University, Miami, FL)
Jos Ignacio iguez de la Torre (Universidad de
Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain)
Jarrett L. Lancaster (University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, Greensboro, NC)
John Mallinckrodt (Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona, CA)
Matthew W. Milligan (Farragut High School, Knoxville,
TN)

572

We ask that all solutions, preferably in Word format, be

submitted to the dedicated email address
challenges@aapt.org. Each message will receive an
automatic acknowledgment.
The subject line of each message should be the same as
the name of the solution file (see the instructions
below).
The deadline for submitting the solutions is the last day
of the corresponding month.
Each month, a representative selection of the successful solvers names will be published in print and on the
web.
If your name isfor instanceStephen Colbert, please
name the file Dec14Colbert (do not include your
first initial) when submitting the December solution.
If you have a message for the Column Editor, you may
contact him at korsunbo@post.harvard.edu; however,
please do not send your solutions to this address.
As always, we look forward to your contributions and
hope that they will include not only solutions but also
your own Challenges that you wish to submit for the
column.
Many thanks to all contributors and we hope to hear
from many more of you in the future!

Boris Korsunsky, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher Vol. 52, December 2014

DOI: 10.1119/1.4901626

This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AAPT content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP:
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