Okay, yes then that does make sense. Maybe the problem reduced by way of some integral manipulation then. I will edit the post and add my solution so maybe somebody can show me an easy way to make the problem less calculation intensive. Thank you for your help.
I am not asking for the solution to the problem. I got the correct answer, just in a much more difficult way than was necessary. I am simply asking for a correction to what is clearly a faulty understanding of gravitational potential energy. Does this still belong in the Introductory Physics...
Here is my solution, which is correct.
The tilt of the water at the top can be described in terms of ##x## and ##y## as ##y = \frac{2y_0}{L}x##. The height of the water at any given x is then equal to ##h + \frac{2y_0}{L}x## where ##x \in [-\frac{L}{2}, \frac{L}{2}]##.
So the potential...
Intro: I have just completed my first year in college as a physics major. My first semester I had some issues with scheduling classes so I have only completed the course called Physics 1 despite attending school for a whole year. This course covered one-dimensional and two-dimensional motion...