# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged centrifugal-force

37

Because the rotation of the earth is very smooth and doesn't change, the centripetal acceleration we feel is very nearly constant. This means that the (small) centrifugal force from the rotation gets added to gravity to make up the "background force" we don't notice. Earthquakes are not at all smooth and the accelerations involved are large and change ...

23

Dan's answer is essentially good, but miss one effect : the Coriolis effect. You can imagine a planet spinning much more rapidly than the earth, but at a constant angular speed. On that quickly rotating planet, the explanation of Dan would still stand, but as soon as on moves, we would feel a lateral Coriolis force. The Coriolis acceleration is ...

20

Great photo! Edit: My language is "sloppy" (I like talking physics in "lay person" terms so anybody can understand) but @dcmkee made really nice comment clarifying my answer for the more advanced people. Thanks @dcmkee! Since the plane is in a loop there is significant g's due to centripetal acceleration. The water was being accelerated upward$^{1}$ with ...

18

The effective gravity inside the ISS is very close to zero, because the station is in free fall. The effective gravity is a combination of gravity and acceleration. If you're standing on the surface of the Earth, you feel gravity (1g, 9.8 m/s2) because you're not in free fall. Your feet press down against the ground, and the ground presses up against your ...

14

By definition an orbit occurs when gravity balances with the "centrifugal" force. It is essentially a free fall situation. So the answer is the same reason why you don't get stuck to the ceiling of a free falling elevator. Both the spacecraft and the occupants are moving in-sync.

14

Ok, here is my (hopefully rigorous) demonstration of the origin of these forces here, from first principles. I've tried to be pretty clear what's happening with the maths. Bear with me, it's a bit lengthy! Angular velocity vector Let us start with the principal equation defining angular velocity in three dimensions, $$\dot{\vec{r}} = \vec{\omega} \times ... 14 It doesn't actually have anything to do with the plane being upside down, or even changing from a vertical direction to a horizontal one. It's purely the vertical velocity that's at play here. Imagine water being thrown upward. You know what, imagine a fountain, a really big fountain. As soon as the water leaves the underground pump, it starts falling back ... 10 There was some doubt about Lubos' answer (which I've accepted), so this is just a verification. I copied the method Lubos described and found the potential difference for an ellipsoid with different eccentricities. Sure enough, for an oblate spheroid, if you make the center-equator distance a fraction e larger than the center-pole distance, the ... 10 Suppose you are at a red light in your car. You apply Newton's second law on the street light.$$F=maF=0N, a=0ms^{-2}0N=0N$$It works!! Now the light turns green and you start accelerating. Suppose your acceleration is 1ms^{-2}. According to you, you are at rest. Do you see your nose moving? Apparently not. It means your body is at rest wrt you. ... 9 Centrifugal force is a particular example of a fictitious force. It is introduced so that Newton's second law holds in a rotating reference frame. Newton's second law says$$F = ma This means that whenever we find an object accelerating (speeding up, slowing down, turning, or some combination), we can look around and find a physical reason why this ...

9

The real force at work is centripetal force, or a force pushing inwards. Imagine you have a bucket on a string, and you swing that around in a circle: As you swing the bucket, it travels in a circle. The red line shows the path the bucket takes. In order to make it swing like this, you have to apply a constant force on the rope -- this is the green arrow ...

9

Firstly you need to understand Newton's law's. basically the second law. Concisely second law is :"whenever we apply a force on an object this force changes object's velocity's magnitude if it is in the same direction as that of the direction of motion and changes the direction of motion if the applied force is not in the direction of motion." When an ...

8

Yes, the ball would land in front of you. If you watch from outside the space station, the ball moves in a straight line at constant speed while you move in a circle at constant speed. That means the distance the ball takes to get from point A (where you release it) to point B (where it hits the floor) is shorter than the distance you take. Further, ...

7

Because it's effect is smaller than the variation in g due to earth's bulge (caused by the same centrifugal force) or the local geology - when you use 9.8m/s^2 that's just an approximation. The effect of the bulge and centrifugal force mean that 'g' at the equator is about 0.5% lower than 'g' at the poles edit: velocity at equator 40,000 km / 24 h = ...

7

It sounds like you don't want the normal rotating spaceship like in "2001" because you get motion sickness. No one really gets "motion sickness" just from moving, though. That's impossible because moving with constant velocity is physically the same as being stationary. What you get is "acceleration sickness". You feel the bumpiness of a car ride. Even ...

7

Actually, the astronaut would only float completely free in the middle of the space station. Elsewhere, he will stick slightly to whatever side is closer to the Earth than is the middle, or farther from the Earth than is the middle. The reason is the tidal force from the Earth, which will be very small but probably detectable. If the acceleration from ...

6

Well, it depends... If you just made the sun much heavier, so the earth would have to move faster in it's orbit, you wouldn't feel any different. It's just that the year would be shorter and the tides higher. If you just put a rocket behind the earth and somehow put it on rails so it couldn't go to a different orbit, then you'd feel it. You'd be heavier in ...

6

It is an interesting question and I know exactly what you mean. I often look at the likes of Stoner performing what you describe and think "wow!". Right, for the answer... Although the front wheel of any bicycle plays a key role in providing stability, it is not required for cornering. The ability to change direction is provided by a centripetal force, ...

6

A centripetal force is not a fundamental force. We call any force a centripetal force if it is acting towards the center of the direction of rotation, perpendicular to the direction of motion. Rotating a rock tied on a string? Centripetal force = tension in the string Satellite orbiting Earth? Centripetal force = gravity Charged object rotating around an ...

5

I think that all the right physics is contained in Martin Beckett's answer and the comments on it, but I'd like to restate it in a way that may bring out what I think the key point is. In practice, when we do experiments in a lab near Earth's surface, we use a value of $g$ that's been determined empirically at that location. For instance, we might determine ...

5

There are two equivalent descriptions$^1$ of the reduced two-body problem with a central potential $V(r)$: In an inertial frame with no fictitious forces: Here $\frac{1}{2}\mu r^{2}\dot{\theta}^{2}$ is the angular part of the kinetic energy. In a rotating frame following the reduced particle with fictitious forces and only 1D radial kinematics: Here ...

5

1) You surely feel the pressure when you accelerate. Whether you attribute it to fictitious forces or other forces depends on your choice of the "reference frame" (vantage point). From the viewpoint of your body's reference frame, which is not an inertial frame, there exist fictitious forces (inertia and/or centrifugal and/or Coriolis' force) that are ...

5

They should feel the same. You only feel forces in orbit if there is something causing sensations, and nothing does in either case. Even on earth, you don't feel the "force" of gravity; you feel the force of the floor pushing you up so that you don't start falling under gravity's influence. In orbit, there is no floor, so you don't feel gravity. You ...

5

NO, They do not cancel out each other, while centripetal (center seeking force) is generally provided by some other agency/force, like for revolution of planets it is provided by gravitational force, centrifugal force(outward force) is a pseudo force which is felt in the reference frame of the revolving/rotating body. Clearly since the two forces belong in ...

5

At the moment the picture was taken the plane, with mass $M$ was performing an inside loop, and was almost exactly inverted. It was moving at a speed $V$ in a vertical circle with radius $R$; both of these are chosen by the pilot as he execute the loop. The physics of circular motion requires that the plane experience a force towards the centre of the ...

5

The force you feel when you round a corner in your car is the friction force of the car seat on your behind, and perhaps the pushing force of the door on your shoulder. These are very real forces that occur when your car tries to turn while your body tries to continue moving in a straight line. But from your point of view in the car, with the windows ...

4

I have often thought of the possibility of using a liquid inside the capsule (with the astronaut in an appropriate breathing apparatus of course). In addition to the increased drag induced on movement, one might be able to cleverly design circulation cells that would induce a force pushing the astronaut towards a grated floor. I think arm motion would be ...

4

Neglecting friction, the force experienced is the Centrifugal Force $F=\frac{mv^2}{r}$ (it would be less if you included friction since the car actually slips) vectorially added to the orthogonal gravitational force $F_g=mg$, i.e. $F = m\sqrt{\left(\frac{v^2}r\right)^2 + g^2}$ where $g = 9.81 \frac{m}{s^2}$1. Divide this by $F_g$ to obtain a result in Gs. ...

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