Serway & Jewett — Static Equilibrium and Elasticity: Problem 5

Your brother is opening a skateboard shop. He has created a sign for his shop made from a uniform material and in the shape shown in Figure P12.5. The shape of the sign represents one of the hills in the skateboard park he plans on building on land adjacent to the shop. The curve on the top of the sign is described by the function \(y = (x - 3)^2/9\). When the sign arrives in his shop, your brother wants to hang it from a single wire outside the shop. But he doesn’t know where on the sign to attach the wire so that the bottom edge of the sign will hang in a horizontal orientation. He asks for your help.