Centripetal Force

  • Is a force(tension force to be exact) that makes a body follow a curved path with a center.
  • The force’s direction is always to the instantaneous center of the path and orthogonal to the motion of the body.
  • The body’s acceleration can be calculated as: a= v^2/r (where v squared is the magnitude scalar(hence only the speed) and not the complete vector direction of the velocity)
  • The net center pulling forces(tension force and other such as gravity) combine the centripetal force in most cases: v^2/r = ∑F(center)/m (which is the summation of all the forces involved  pulling inward to the circle center).

 

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