The "rising chimp" problem

[petzl]

@Ratel

I think the chimpanzee gets to the top first, but only briefly.

Each time the chimpanzee pulls itself up, the weight will be held by inertia. But once the chimpanzee is higher than the weight, then the pulley is imbalanced, and this causes the weight to rise secondarily.

There are several things wrong with this:

The chimp and the weight are the precisely the same weight, the rope is weightless, there is pulley is perfectly frictionless. As the chimp pulls up, the weight rises an equal with every pull.

So [quote=“Ratel, post:19, topic:77268”]
But once the chimpanzee is higher than the weight
[/quote]

The chimp being higher will never have an effect. They are equal weight. They exert the same force downward. The height is immaterial. They do not “equal out” if one is higher than the other.