[ELI5] I honestly don’t understand the difference between centrifugal and centripetal. Help please.

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I swear my physics prof claimed one of these didn’t exist as a force – I think it was centripetal. But that was a long time ago. Maybe it was discovered recently. Such confuse.

In: Engineering

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Centrifugal: When you are on a merry-go-round that is spinning fast, you feel like you are being forced outward.

Centripetal: Gravity pulls you towards earth (better explanation is the satellite falling, but i like mine for ELI5)

To memorize these in class, i used to use the P in Centripedal as a pull. And the F in Centrifugal as forcing away.

The reason why Centrifugal force is a fake force, is because, say you are in a car that is turning left really fast. You feel a strong (centrifugal) force forcing you to the right. You only feel that because the car is changing direction and your body wants to keep going in the old direction it was. Nothing is actually forcing you outward.

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