When a body is moving in a circular motion the acceleration keeps changing, will it be zero when it comes back to the same point it started from(will the average acceleration be 0?)
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1$\begingroup$ Are you thinking of circular motion with constant angular velocity? Please clarify. $\endgroup$– flaudemusCommented Mar 4, 2019 at 7:20
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$\begingroup$ @flaudemus. As long as the body is still in motion, it's accelerating direction-wise. The issue of angular velocity change is trivia, so wether it does or not, the rule of acceleration still holds. $\endgroup$– TechDroidCommented Mar 4, 2019 at 7:26
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$\begingroup$ If you wanna know about avg. acceleration, it will be $0$ for uniform circular motion after one rotation but instantaneous acceleration won't ever be zero for uniform circular motion. $\endgroup$– user8718165Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 7:30
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1 Answer
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Acceleration is a vector quantity, meaning it operates both in the form of magnitude change and direction change. If the velocity of a body is continuously changing in magnitude or direction, it's said to be accelerating. In a circular motion scenario, the velocity might be both changing in magnitude (as in angular acceleration $\alpha$) or in direction (as in centripetal acceleration $a$ pointing towards the center). To to answer the question, a body still in a circular motion is always accelerating direction-wise.
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$\begingroup$ Hope you don’t mind that I corrected an obvious typo changing ‘body’ to ‘velocity’. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 7:34
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$\begingroup$ No, not at all. That's basically what the site environment is meant for, to have each other's backs. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 7:54