A drilling engineer wishes to support pipes of length L on blocks so that the magnitude of the bending moment in the pipes directly over the supports is equal to the magnitude of the bending moment at the center of the pipes. Let w be the weight of the pipes per unit length and neglect the width of the support blocks. (a) Determine the distance from each end, aL, at which the engineer should place the supports. (b) Determine the corresponding magnitude of the bending moments at the supports and at the center.