Halliday, Resnick & Walker — Force and Motion–I: Problem 82

Physics circus train. You are charged with moving a circus to the next town. You have two engines and need to attach four boxcars to each, as shown in Fig. 5.48 for one of the engines. The mass of each boxcar is given below in kilograms, and each engine produces the same accelerating force. (a) Determine which boxcars should be connected to each engine so that the accelerations of the trains are both \( a = 2.00 \text{ m/s}^2 \). (b) Next, determine the sequence of boxcars in each train that minimizes the tensions in the interconnections between boxcars. Here is an example of an answer: CBAF—boxcar C would be the last (leftmost) one and boxcar F would be the first (rightmost) one. For the train with boxcar B, what are the interconnection tensions between (c) the front boxcar and the boxcar behind it and (d) the last boxcar and the boxcar in front of it? \( A = 7.50 \times 10^5 \), \( B = 7.00 \times 10^5 \), \( C = 6.00 \times 10^5 \), \( D = 5.00 \times 10^5 \), \( E = 4.00 \times 10^5 \), \( F = 3.50 \times 10^5 \), \( G = 2.00 \times 10^5 \), \( H = 1.00 \times 10^5 \)