Hi, i am having trouble understanding why centrifugal force is a “psuedo” force. Centripetal force holds an object in rotation pulling toward the centre , whereas centrifugal force is pushing the object outwards.
I have veen trying to watch videos but the examples dont really help.
For example, if im in a car going around a corner, the faster i go, the more the car wants to fly off the road.
Or if an object us on a spinning platform like a lazy susan, the faster i spin the lazy susan, the further away the object gets (until it falls off).
Is centrifugal force just the lack of centripetal force?
In: 5
You’re right. “Centrifugal force” is actually just a lack of a centripetal force. Sort of?
Centrifugal force, literally “center-fleeing” force, is an inertial force. It only appears when you make the erroneous assumption that an object should follow a circular path.
It goes a bit deeper than this, though, since if you *do* have a centripetal force pulling on a mass, the mass will of course push back on the centripetal force due to its inertia. This push back, being in the opposite direction of the centripetal force, is indeed centrifugal and it is a real force which will generate stress on your parts. In this sense, a centrifugal force is a very real force, but it only appears from the inertia of the mass that’s been made to follow a to a non-inertial path.
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