<p>If I pull a length of rope from one side with 10N force, and a buddy of mine pulls from another end, in the opposite direction, with 10N force.....the tension in the rope is 20N, right? Or is it 10N?
It's high time to clear the 7 year long confusion.....</p>
<p>My gut tells me that the tension is 0 N. The net force on the rope is 0 N, so I think the tension should also be 0 N. If the net force on the rope were non-zero, the rope would be accelerating.</p>
<p>Not 100% sure, though.</p>
<p>20N. You can think about this as being equivalent to a scenario in which one end of the rope is attached to a stationary wall and then the other side is pulled on with a 20N force.</p>
<p>It can’t be O N. If a string is hanging from the ceiling with a load of 10N at the end, the tension is 10N, even though there is no net force or acceleration.</p>
<p>^are you sure it’s 20N?</p>
<p>No it is 10 N !!!</p>
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<p>Ah, that makes sense. So the net force on the rope and the tension are different?</p>
<p>Assuming the rope is not accelerating, the tension in the case of two people pulling is 10 N, and in the tension in the case of one person pulling is 20 N. The two situations are not equivalent.</p>
<p>An equivalent wall scenario would be the person pulling with 10 N (in which case the wall also pulls with 10 N).</p>
<p>The tension in both cases is the force being exerted by the rope on whatever is attached to either end. The net force on the rope in both cases is 0 N, which is always true for a massless rope.</p>
<p>A massless rope just “transmits” the force from one end to the other. It is as if the one person was pulling directly on the other person.</p>
<p>When looking at only one end of the rope, there is only the force pulling and the tension. Because the net force is zero, the tension has to equal the force.
The rope is massless so the tension is just the force from the other side of the rope.</p>