I’m back!
Still making progress; I’m on chapter 7 now. As I think I said, I found someone who has worked through the problems and posted the answers online. However, he does take a few shortcuts. On the problem I’m currently working on, he jumps from
\frac{1}{2} ωL^{2}\frac{(L-2a)^2}{4(L-a)^2}=\frac{1}{2}ωa^2
to
(\frac{1}{2}-\frac{a}{L})^2-(\frac{a}{L})^2(1-\frac{a}{L})^2=0
Can anyone help me break that down into more manageable steps?
I found a useful equation editor here. (Unfortunately, when I cut and paste from that I run into the “no posting media items” problem.
While searching for this thread to revive it, I found a similar thread started by @Cubsfan about 20 years ago. Using the same book I am; same edition, even.