Consider a system of two toy railway cars (i.e., frictionless masses) connected to each other by three springs, two of which are attached to walls, 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.

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