Taking rightward motion to be positive for the block and clockwise motion to be negative for the wheel.
Applying Newton’s second law to the block gives,
Similarly, applying Newton’s second law to the wheel gives,
Now,
As tangential acceleration is opposite to that of block’s acceleration ,
Therefore,
Use equation (2) into (1),
Hence, the magnitude of the angular acceleration of the wheel is
Therefore, the magnitude of the angular acceleration of the wheel can be found using Newton’s second law for the block and for the rotating wheel by using the relation between angular acceleration and linear acceleration.