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Maximum radius of a loop
A 50 g hot wheels car starts 2m above the ground on a spring with constant 800 N/m that is compressed 5 cm. Further on the track, there is a loop of radius R starting on the ground. What is the maximum value of R such that the car moves around the loop without falling off at the top?
Shouldn't R just be such that the total potential energy at the top of the loop be equal to the initial energy?
Customer support service by UserEcho
If all the car's energy is in gravitational potential, then the car would not be moving at the top of the track(since there's no kinetic energy). Can a car sit stationary at the top of the track? Of course not; it would actually fall before it gets that high.
You are on the right track though(no pun intended). Equating the energies is the way to solve this, but you need to take into consideration the kinetic energy at the top of the track.
Hint: the loop is a circle.