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Physics: Centripetal vs Centrifugal Forces: Fiction in Physics 5 Views


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Hit play to learn about centripetal and centrifugal forces.

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Transcript

00:01

No centripetal versus and trip ical forces friction in physics

00:08

All right just be understanding still don't mean you earth

00:11

orbiting sun hwe go myth of centrifugal forints on the

00:16

car goes around round round here go there All rights

00:19

and trip it tilting thing in the glass Here we

00:22

go Well sometimes it feels like we're going in circles

00:26

just going round and round not actually getting anywhere And

00:29

here's a little secret Well it's true that's what we

00:32

do in fact we're going in multiple circles all at

00:35

once For one thing the earth is spinning on its

00:38

axis and it's spinning really really fast like a thousand

00:41

miles an hour kind of fast way faster than a

00:43

racecar that's one circle But we're also orbiting the sun

00:47

in a circle and that's even faster the earth and

00:50

all of us on it air flying around the sun

00:53

at around sixty seven thousand miles an hour to put

00:56

that in scientific terms super crazy fast but actually that's

01:01

a snail's pace when you look at our solar system

01:03

is a hole because the sun the planets and everything

01:06

else in our little neighborhood is whirling around the center

01:09

Of our galaxy at a whopping five hundred thousand miles

01:12

an hour Yikes And you thought you were just sitting

01:15

in your chair not moving like a lump there So

01:18

we've got circles within circles and yet we stay firmly

01:21

attached to the ground How does that happen Why don't

01:24

we go flying off into space like water flying off

01:27

a dog when it shakes itself dry Well it's for

01:30

the same reason that a tether ball doesn't go flying

01:33

away from the pole it's tied to and the same

01:36

reason this car is able to go around the track

01:38

and that reason is centripetal force will centripetal force is

01:44

the force that points toward the center of a circle

01:47

when they're circular motion So when the moon orbits the

01:50

earth well there's a centripetal force that keeps it from

01:52

wandering on over to mars same with the race car

01:56

and the tether ball But hold on how to the

01:58

moon and tether ball in my car all have the

02:00

same kind of force Well they don't A centripetal force

02:04

isn't any specific type of force It could be a

02:08

normal force or tension or gravity or some other kind

02:11

Of force for that matter as any ancient roman khun

02:15

tell you send trip it toe literally means center seeking

02:19

in latin In the case of circular motion any force

02:23

that acts toward the center of a circle is the

02:25

centripetal force So centripetal is an adjective that describes how

02:30

our forces acting rather than a type of force unto

02:33

itself Now you may have heard of another kind of

02:36

force It's the force you feel pushing you to the

02:39

outside of a circle Like when you're chillin in the

02:43

passenger seat When your mom realizes well she's about to

02:46

miss her left turn you might feel a force smush

02:49

ing your face against the window Well some people call

02:52

that the centrifugal force and those people's pants are probably

02:57

on fire because they're liars Okay well maybe it's a

03:00

bit hard but the truth is that there's no such

03:03

thing as sent terrific yl force It doesn't exist It's

03:07

a myth a lie like mermaids or leper cons or

03:11

fat free cheesecake that actually tastes good Now let's think

03:15

back to what our old pal sir isaac newton said

03:18

Newton's first law of motion says that objects in motion

03:21

Tend to stay in motion and objects at rest and

03:24

to stay at rest So when you're in the car

03:27

trying to ignore your mom singing along every single eighties

03:30

sung that ever existed well your body is moving in

03:34

a straight line and your body has inertia that will

03:37

keep moving in that straight line unless something acts on

03:41

it So when she jerks the wheel to last well

03:44

your body wants to maintain the motion in the pre

03:47

turn direction Luckily there's seat belt and a door in

03:51

a window that air preventing that in fact they're providing

03:54

a centripetal force on your body and it's a good

03:58

thing they are otherwise well you'd end up outside sidecar

04:01

and that would hurt So while you feel like you're

04:03

being pushed to the outside of the turn all your

04:06

feeling is inertia Trying to keep you going in a

04:10

straight line There's no extra force that suddenly pops into

04:14

existence once something starts moving in a circle is just

04:17

plain old inertia doing it's a you know inertia thing

04:21

but wait If centripetal force points toward the center of

04:25

a circle why doesn't the object just end up in

04:28

The center of the circle Well we can find an

04:30

explanation for this in outer space Not too far out

04:34

Though The international space station is only about two hundred

04:37

fifty miles away from earth We might think that astronauts

04:40

in the space station float because there's no gravity up

04:43

there but that's not true Two hundred fifty miles isn't

04:46

close enough to escape earth's gravity In fact at that

04:50

distance the force of gravity from our planet is on

04:53

ly reduced by about ten percent But it sure doesn't

04:57

look that way when we see those cool videos where

05:00

everything is floating around The truth is that the space

05:03

station and everything in it is falling Centripetal force in

05:08

the form of gravity is pulling it toward the earth's

05:11

core but it has velocity that's at a ninety degree

05:16

angle to that centripetal force If we look at the

05:19

circular orbit of the space station the velocity vector is

05:23

always tangent to the circle Well a tangent to a

05:27

circle is a line that only touches the circle at

05:29

one point it's not going to cut through the circle

05:32

at all and a line that's tangent to the circle

05:35

Will always be perpendicular to the radius of the circle

05:39

at the point where the tangent line touches creating that

05:42

ninety degree angle So we have two vectors one first

05:46

centripetal force and another for velocity Well when the planet's

05:51

gravity pulls on the space station the space station feels

05:55

that pole and falls down But the space station is

05:58

moving perpendicular toe Whatever down is at any particular moment

06:04

and it's moving really fast Like really really fast like

06:07

five miles per second fast man does everything go faster

06:11

than my race car anyway This velocity creates a situation

06:15

where the space station isn't falling towards earth it's falling

06:18

around the earth and because everything is falling at the

06:22

same rate Well there's no way for anything Tohave Wait

06:25

just think of tryingto weigh yourself on a scale while

06:28

both u n the scale are in free fall It's

06:31

a foolproof weight loss solution right up until you hit

06:34

the ground Yeah so now we understand there's no such

06:38

thing isn't terrific Yl force and the centripetal force describes

06:42

a force that's pointed toward the center of circular motion

06:46

Alright let's hop in the car and take a few

06:48

Laps around the track here as we head into turn

06:50

one what are the forces that are acting on the

06:52

car and in what direction are these forces acting We're

06:56

going to be getting the three dimensional treatment here but

06:59

don't worry no special glasses will be required Let's ease

07:02

into this question slowly we're always gonna have gravity to

07:06

deal with right That's pointing straight down since we're not

07:09

floating in the air we've also got a normal force

07:12

from the pavement pushing us up And of course the

07:15

engine in the car is providing a force that's making

07:18

the car move forward then there's a force of friction

07:21

that's acting in the opposite direction Well that's all well

07:24

and good Nothing we haven't run into before by now

07:27

we're like the picasso of free body diagrams but none

07:31

of these forces air making the car turn let's look

07:33

at a bird's eye view of the situation We won't

07:36

worry about gravity in the normal force for right now

07:38

we've got our applied force and friction right Well since

07:41

we're turning left there has to be some centripetal force

07:44

pointing to the left We could cheat and just label

07:47

it f sub c for centripetal but that wouldn't be

07:51

very accurate We should label this with a specific type

07:54

of force so what's keeping the car from just maintaining

07:58

its forward inertia well more friction the friction between the

08:02

wheels and the tract pushes toward the center of this

08:05

circular motion If you've ever made a sharp turn on

08:08

a gravel road you know that the friction in that

08:11

circumstance might not have been strong enough to keep you

08:14

from sliding forward But thanks to our fancy high tech

08:17

tires here i can make this turn at about one

08:20

hundred seventy five miles an hour Sure it's not quite

08:22

as fast as a space station but i'm doing pretty

08:25

well here for standards and what would happen if we

08:28

hit an oil patch and lost all our frictional force

08:31

We keep on going straight in a line tangent to

08:34

the curve were in because there's no such thing as

08:36

a centrifugal force acting to maintain circular motion centripetal force

08:42

is the tooth fairy of circular motion and sorry if

08:45

you just found out the tooth fairy isn't really we're

08:48

not going to get into the whole santa claus thing

08:50

Here So we've seen a few examples of different centripetal

08:53

forces Let's take a look at one more ever been

08:56

to the carnival and ridden a grab a tron will

08:59

a gravity tron is a ride that basically spins you

09:01

around like you're inside of a top it might not

09:05

sound that cool but it's been so fast that your

09:07

inertia basically pins you to the wall and that lets

09:11

you climb up the wall like you're floating your feet

09:14

won't touch the floor in the ride we'll just be

09:17

suspended above it Pretty cool right How is that possible

09:21

Well after all it's not like gravity just goes away

09:24

once you hand over your ticket and get in the

09:26

machine What happens is that as the ride spins faster

09:30

and faster the force of your inertia becomes stronger and

09:34

stronger because your body wants to go straight it pushes

09:37

hard into the walls of the ride The spinning khun

09:40

get so fast that you can experience a force three

09:43

times stronger than gravity because you're being pushed into the

09:47

wall with so much force a force of inertia is

09:50

greater than the force of gravity so inertia wins and

09:54

you can lose contact with the ground without crashing down

09:57

and you know hopefully the contents of your stomach don't

10:00

come crashing up Okay so that makes sense But because

10:03

we've got circular motion we know we need us in

10:06

trip it'll force and it ain't gravity it's not friction

10:10

either In the gravity tron the centripetal force that's pushing

10:13

you toward the center of the circle is a normal

10:16

force The normal force provided by the walls of the

10:19

ride pushing back on you as your inertia pushes you

10:24

against the wall centripetal force can be a little tricky

10:27

Sometimes we really have to think about what's going on

10:29

to determine what's creating the force So next time you

10:33

feel like things are spinning out of control take a

10:36

second to think about where all that spinning is coming

10:38

from and hopefully you'll feel a centripetal force that keeps

10:42

you from flying outside of the circle because well when

10:45

that centripetal force let's go no other force that's not 00:10:50.488 --> [endTime] quite as nice

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