Why is Centrifugal force “not real”? I remember my physics teacher in high school pushing that idea and understanding why back then, but I do not remember now. I also forgot so much about physics in general that a simple would be much appreciated!
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Centrifugal force is “not real” because pretentious assholes like to pretend they’re very smart. Just ask them what the equal and opposite force to the centripetal force is, and what they would call it.
As an example, if you are in a car making a sharp turn, you feel like you are being pushed into the side of the car. But what is happening is that your inertia resists the change in direction, and the side of the car is pushing on your body to cause it to accelerate in the direction of the turn. This feels to you just like a gravitational force pushing you away from the center of the turn (and Albert Einstein says they’re indistinguishable).
But because baby physicists only do inertial reference frames and never accelerating reference frames, they can’t use the perspective of what it looks like to you. In any case, they get so caught up explaining, that they forget that the whole thing was originally called the centrifugal force.
**In summary, inertia is what keeps your body moving straight such that side of the car pushes into you, centripetal force is what accelerates your body into following the curve, and centrifugal force is the force your body exerts on the car.**
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