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Originally Posted by seagull  Tgrayson will have fun with this one, but I would say that centrifugal force does not exist at all. Essentially, if you are in a car and the car makes a hard turn, you feel pressed against the outside of the turn. What is going on is that your body is independent of the car, and it wants to continue in a straight line, but the car is changing its path, so you hit the outside side of the turn as you move along going straight. The "force" of you hitting the outside is what is referred to in common venacular as "centrifugal force", but it is not a "force" at all, but just the obvious result of what I described above. No "force" is being applied to you, except for any that the car is applying to "force" you to turn with it! Hopefully a reasonable response after a couple of brews! |
This is exactly right. What someone said above about "apparent" forces is correct. An "apparent force" (like "centrifugal force") is a result of your whole frame of reference being under the influence of an opposite force...
To put that clearer, imagine a car turning in a circle. The car is experiencing a force towards the center of the circle, otherwise it would continue in a straight path. This force is centripetal-- a force towards the center of the circle.
Now if you are INSIDE the car, you seem to feel as though you are pushed OUT from the center of the circle, but what is really happening is that the rest of the car is being pused toward the center of the circle, and you are not. It feels as though you are experiencing a force to the outside, because your whole reference frame (in this case the car) is experiencing an opposite force (to the inside). You aren't really experiencing a "real" force, what you notice is only an "apparent" force. This is what centrifugal force is. It's not really a force at all, but rather an "apparent force" that objects experience when they are in a frame of reference, where the whole frame of reference is accelerating or experiencing a force.