Eli5: How does centripetal force work?
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If you’ve learned it, remember Newton’s First Law – “An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force”.
That boils down to objects move in straight lines until they pushed or stopped.
The straight line part is the key here – objects don’t spin in circles naturally, they want to move in a straight line. In order to make an object spin in a circle it needs a constant “come back here!” force to counter act the “flying away” desire from Newton’s First Law. If the come-back-here perfectly cancels out the flying-away-desire, the object *doesn’t* fly away, and you essentially get an “orbit”, a perfect spinning motion around a central point.
So if you spin a ball around on a string, the ball constantly wants to fly off, if the string snaps or if you let go it’ll do just that. The string is the source the constant “Come back here force” that keeps the ball spinning in a circle.
How Does it Work – The strength of the force required to keep the ball from flying off can be calculated and measured. The equation has 3 factors –
1. the mass of the object (sort of like the weight of the ball in layman’s terms, but that’s not a perfect definition)
2. The length of the “string”
3. The speed the object moves.
In order words, the heavier the object, the faster it moves, and the shorter the length, the stronger the centripetal force.
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