eli5 why does a poll spin faster the farther it is from the center?

Question

The title says it all and I just wanna know the stuff behind how it is and how it works!

In: 0

Answer 1

So there are two ways of measuring how fast something is spinning.

First is how many revolutions a second it is making, if it takes 1 second for the pole to spin all the way around to its original position, then it is spinning at 1 revolution per second, across the entire pole no matter how far from the center.

Or you can measure the actual velocity of a specific point on the pole traveling the distance.

Since the whole pole is spinning at the same rate in revolutions, the parts towards the outer edge travel faster during that 1 revolution, because they have more distance to cover in their circle. Imagine you mark 3 points on the pole, 1 close to the center, 1 halfway to the edge, and 1 at the edge. When you spin the pole all three create a circle, but the point towards the outer edge creates a much much bigger circle.

Since it is traveling around a bigger circle in the same amount of time, it must be traveling faster.