CALC Consider the ring- shaped body of ?Fig. E13.35?. A particle with mass ?m is placed a distance x from the center of the ring, along the line through the center of the ring and perpendicular to its plane. (a) Calculate the gravitational potential energy U of this system. Take the potential energy to be zero when the two objects are far apart. (b) Show that your answer to part (a) reduces to the expected result when x is much larger than the radius a of the ring. (c) Use Fx = -dU/dx to find the magnitude and direction of the force on the particle (see Section 7.4). (d) Show that your answer to part (c) reduces to the expected result when x is much larger than a. (e) What are the values of U and Fx when x = 0? Explain why these results make sense.
Solution Step 1 of 8 Let us consider the ring of mass M , a particle of mass m is placed at a distance x from the center of the ring as shown in the figure below