Can anyone explain what this question means?

Write a program which runs as a function from the command line to find the equilibrium positions of the masses by solving Kx = b. Your program must plot the total length of the system as a function of k1/k2. Your plot should extend far enough to make clear any limiting values of the total length.

So I thought that I would get the user to input the k1 and k2 values within the function, because thats all they need to find the equilibrium positions. But if I only get one k1 and k2 values that would give me an equilibrium position how would i be able to plot that? It would just be a point.

And if we want a range of numbers then why would I create a function that asks for one input

Maybe I understand the question wrong but any help would be greatly appreciated

[darova]

Please be more specific. Show your code, show your problems

[Ash matlab]

I haven't written my code yet. But the question is regarding a coupled mass spring system.

This is what I have so far

Question: Write a program which runs as a function from the command line to find the equilibrium positions of the masses by solving Kx = b. Your program must plot the total length of the system as a function of k1/k2. Your plot should extend far enough to make clear any limiting values of the total length.

My solution so far

[darova]

Solution

K = your_matrix
b = your_vector
x = K\b;

Simple?

[Ash matlab]

Thank you, I did that part so far but I was mostly curious about the plotting part. How would I go about doing that?

[darova]

Hm.

Maybe there should be a loop? Many k1 and k2

[Ash matlab]

It's really confusing, and you're saying that the loop should be around the values of k1 and k2?

How would I go about doing that? How would I create a vector thats says 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,.............k1, 98, 99, 100

Like I would want the k1 and k2 values to be in the center of the vector

[darova]

Something like that:

N = 20;
[x,y,z] = deal(zeros(1,N));
    k1 = values?
    k2 = values?
for i = 1:N
    K = matrix
    b = vector
    X = K\b
    x(i) = X(1);
    y(i) = X(2);
    z(i) = X(3);
end
plot3(x,y,z,'.r')       % surface?

[Ash matlab]

Thank you so much!