Consider a system of two toy railway cars (i.e., frictionless masses) connected to each other by two springs, one of which is attached to the wall, as shown in the figure. Let and be the displacement of the first and second masses from their equilibrium positions. Suppose the masses are and , and the spring constants are and .  
  1. Set up a system of second-order differential equations that models this situation.


  2. Find the general solution to this system of differential equations. Use to denote arbitrary constants, and enter them as a1, a2, b1, b2.

You can earn partial credit on this problem.