Centripetal Force?
I know I'll probably get it eventually, but i'm having trouble understanding what the centripetal force is. I kind of imagine the pennies in the mall but I don't really understand, everything from the equations, to the actual concept, or the diagram on 3e. Can someone help me out? First off how do you calculate the centripetal force and what is the difference between the centripetal force and acceleration?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The centripetal force is calculating the acceleration between different velocities of an object that is moving at a constant speed (i.e. it's changing direction). We've done things with this in class where we've used x vs. y position data to calculate velocity vectors and use vector subtraction (tail to tail) to find changes in velocity. Knowing the change in velocity allows us to find the acceleration and if we know the mass of the object, we can also find the force (Fnet = ma). This is the centripetal force. And also, I believe the difference between centripetal force and acceleration is that one is a force and the other an acceleration.
well talk about this on monday but the centripetal force is the component of the NET force that produces the centripetal acceleration.
You should NEVER have a force in your FBD called centripetal force, just like you should NEVER draw a net force in your FBD.
Centripetal force is just a component of the net force. It's the part of the net force person to the velocity (which will change the direction of motion).
Post a Comment