A balanced lever has two weights on it, one with mass $2 kg$ and one with mass $16 kg$ . If the first weight is $8 m$ from the fulcrum, how far is the second weight from the fulcrum?

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Answer 1 · 2015-12-11T18:41:55

$1"m"$

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You can use the principle of moments. The moment of a force is the force multiplied by the perpendicular distance of the force from the fulcrum.

For the lever to be balanced the anti - clockwise moments must balance the clockwise moments.

So from the diagram we can write:

$2gxx8=16gxxd$

$:.d=(16g)/(16g)=1"m"$

A balanced lever has two weights on it, one with mass 2 kg2 kg and one with mass 16 kg16 kg. If the first weight is 8 m 8 m from the fulcrum, how far is the second weight from the fulcrum?