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Physics: Centripetal vs Centrifugal Forces: Fiction in Physics 5 Views
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Description:
Hit play to learn about centripetal and centrifugal forces.
Transcript
- 00:01
No centripetal versus and trip ical forces friction in physics
- 00:08
All right just be understanding still don't mean you earth
- 00:11
orbiting sun hwe go myth of centrifugal forints on the
- 00:16
car goes around round round here go there All rights
- 00:19
and trip it tilting thing in the glass Here we
Full Transcript
- 00:22
go Well sometimes it feels like we're going in circles
- 00:26
just going round and round not actually getting anywhere And
- 00:29
here's a little secret Well it's true that's what we
- 00:32
do in fact we're going in multiple circles all at
- 00:35
once For one thing the earth is spinning on its
- 00:38
axis and it's spinning really really fast like a thousand
- 00:41
miles an hour kind of fast way faster than a
- 00:43
racecar that's one circle But we're also orbiting the sun
- 00:47
in a circle and that's even faster the earth and
- 00:50
all of us on it air flying around the sun
- 00:53
at around sixty seven thousand miles an hour to put
- 00:56
that in scientific terms super crazy fast but actually that's
- 01:01
a snail's pace when you look at our solar system
- 01:03
is a hole because the sun the planets and everything
- 01:06
else in our little neighborhood is whirling around the center
- 01:09
Of our galaxy at a whopping five hundred thousand miles
- 01:12
an hour Yikes And you thought you were just sitting
- 01:15
in your chair not moving like a lump there So
- 01:18
we've got circles within circles and yet we stay firmly
- 01:21
attached to the ground How does that happen Why don't
- 01:24
we go flying off into space like water flying off
- 01:27
a dog when it shakes itself dry Well it's for
- 01:30
the same reason that a tether ball doesn't go flying
- 01:33
away from the pole it's tied to and the same
- 01:36
reason this car is able to go around the track
- 01:38
and that reason is centripetal force will centripetal force is
- 01:44
the force that points toward the center of a circle
- 01:47
when they're circular motion So when the moon orbits the
- 01:50
earth well there's a centripetal force that keeps it from
- 01:52
wandering on over to mars same with the race car
- 01:56
and the tether ball But hold on how to the
- 01:58
moon and tether ball in my car all have the
- 02:00
same kind of force Well they don't A centripetal force
- 02:04
isn't any specific type of force It could be a
- 02:08
normal force or tension or gravity or some other kind
- 02:11
Of force for that matter as any ancient roman khun
- 02:15
tell you send trip it toe literally means center seeking
- 02:19
in latin In the case of circular motion any force
- 02:23
that acts toward the center of a circle is the
- 02:25
centripetal force So centripetal is an adjective that describes how
- 02:30
our forces acting rather than a type of force unto
- 02:33
itself Now you may have heard of another kind of
- 02:36
force It's the force you feel pushing you to the
- 02:39
outside of a circle Like when you're chillin in the
- 02:43
passenger seat When your mom realizes well she's about to
- 02:46
miss her left turn you might feel a force smush
- 02:49
ing your face against the window Well some people call
- 02:52
that the centrifugal force and those people's pants are probably
- 02:57
on fire because they're liars Okay well maybe it's a
- 03:00
bit hard but the truth is that there's no such
- 03:03
thing as sent terrific yl force It doesn't exist It's
- 03:07
a myth a lie like mermaids or leper cons or
- 03:11
fat free cheesecake that actually tastes good Now let's think
- 03:15
back to what our old pal sir isaac newton said
- 03:18
Newton's first law of motion says that objects in motion
- 03:21
Tend to stay in motion and objects at rest and
- 03:24
to stay at rest So when you're in the car
- 03:27
trying to ignore your mom singing along every single eighties
- 03:30
sung that ever existed well your body is moving in
- 03:34
a straight line and your body has inertia that will
- 03:37
keep moving in that straight line unless something acts on
- 03:41
it So when she jerks the wheel to last well
- 03:44
your body wants to maintain the motion in the pre
- 03:47
turn direction Luckily there's seat belt and a door in
- 03:51
a window that air preventing that in fact they're providing
- 03:54
a centripetal force on your body and it's a good
- 03:58
thing they are otherwise well you'd end up outside sidecar
- 04:01
and that would hurt So while you feel like you're
- 04:03
being pushed to the outside of the turn all your
- 04:06
feeling is inertia Trying to keep you going in a
- 04:10
straight line There's no extra force that suddenly pops into
- 04:14
existence once something starts moving in a circle is just
- 04:17
plain old inertia doing it's a you know inertia thing
- 04:21
but wait If centripetal force points toward the center of
- 04:25
a circle why doesn't the object just end up in
- 04:28
The center of the circle Well we can find an
- 04:30
explanation for this in outer space Not too far out
- 04:34
Though The international space station is only about two hundred
- 04:37
fifty miles away from earth We might think that astronauts
- 04:40
in the space station float because there's no gravity up
- 04:43
there but that's not true Two hundred fifty miles isn't
- 04:46
close enough to escape earth's gravity In fact at that
- 04:50
distance the force of gravity from our planet is on
- 04:53
ly reduced by about ten percent But it sure doesn't
- 04:57
look that way when we see those cool videos where
- 05:00
everything is floating around The truth is that the space
- 05:03
station and everything in it is falling Centripetal force in
- 05:08
the form of gravity is pulling it toward the earth's
- 05:11
core but it has velocity that's at a ninety degree
- 05:16
angle to that centripetal force If we look at the
- 05:19
circular orbit of the space station the velocity vector is
- 05:23
always tangent to the circle Well a tangent to a
- 05:27
circle is a line that only touches the circle at
- 05:29
one point it's not going to cut through the circle
- 05:32
at all and a line that's tangent to the circle
- 05:35
Will always be perpendicular to the radius of the circle
- 05:39
at the point where the tangent line touches creating that
- 05:42
ninety degree angle So we have two vectors one first
- 05:46
centripetal force and another for velocity Well when the planet's
- 05:51
gravity pulls on the space station the space station feels
- 05:55
that pole and falls down But the space station is
- 05:58
moving perpendicular toe Whatever down is at any particular moment
- 06:04
and it's moving really fast Like really really fast like
- 06:07
five miles per second fast man does everything go faster
- 06:11
than my race car anyway This velocity creates a situation
- 06:15
where the space station isn't falling towards earth it's falling
- 06:18
around the earth and because everything is falling at the
- 06:22
same rate Well there's no way for anything Tohave Wait
- 06:25
just think of tryingto weigh yourself on a scale while
- 06:28
both u n the scale are in free fall It's
- 06:31
a foolproof weight loss solution right up until you hit
- 06:34
the ground Yeah so now we understand there's no such
- 06:38
thing isn't terrific Yl force and the centripetal force describes
- 06:42
a force that's pointed toward the center of circular motion
- 06:46
Alright let's hop in the car and take a few
- 06:48
Laps around the track here as we head into turn
- 06:50
one what are the forces that are acting on the
- 06:52
car and in what direction are these forces acting We're
- 06:56
going to be getting the three dimensional treatment here but
- 06:59
don't worry no special glasses will be required Let's ease
- 07:02
into this question slowly we're always gonna have gravity to
- 07:06
deal with right That's pointing straight down since we're not
- 07:09
floating in the air we've also got a normal force
- 07:12
from the pavement pushing us up And of course the
- 07:15
engine in the car is providing a force that's making
- 07:18
the car move forward then there's a force of friction
- 07:21
that's acting in the opposite direction Well that's all well
- 07:24
and good Nothing we haven't run into before by now
- 07:27
we're like the picasso of free body diagrams but none
- 07:31
of these forces air making the car turn let's look
- 07:33
at a bird's eye view of the situation We won't
- 07:36
worry about gravity in the normal force for right now
- 07:38
we've got our applied force and friction right Well since
- 07:41
we're turning left there has to be some centripetal force
- 07:44
pointing to the left We could cheat and just label
- 07:47
it f sub c for centripetal but that wouldn't be
- 07:51
very accurate We should label this with a specific type
- 07:54
of force so what's keeping the car from just maintaining
- 07:58
its forward inertia well more friction the friction between the
- 08:02
wheels and the tract pushes toward the center of this
- 08:05
circular motion If you've ever made a sharp turn on
- 08:08
a gravel road you know that the friction in that
- 08:11
circumstance might not have been strong enough to keep you
- 08:14
from sliding forward But thanks to our fancy high tech
- 08:17
tires here i can make this turn at about one
- 08:20
hundred seventy five miles an hour Sure it's not quite
- 08:22
as fast as a space station but i'm doing pretty
- 08:25
well here for standards and what would happen if we
- 08:28
hit an oil patch and lost all our frictional force
- 08:31
We keep on going straight in a line tangent to
- 08:34
the curve were in because there's no such thing as
- 08:36
a centrifugal force acting to maintain circular motion centripetal force
- 08:42
is the tooth fairy of circular motion and sorry if
- 08:45
you just found out the tooth fairy isn't really we're
- 08:48
not going to get into the whole santa claus thing
- 08:50
Here So we've seen a few examples of different centripetal
- 08:53
forces Let's take a look at one more ever been
- 08:56
to the carnival and ridden a grab a tron will
- 08:59
a gravity tron is a ride that basically spins you
- 09:01
around like you're inside of a top it might not
- 09:05
sound that cool but it's been so fast that your
- 09:07
inertia basically pins you to the wall and that lets
- 09:11
you climb up the wall like you're floating your feet
- 09:14
won't touch the floor in the ride we'll just be
- 09:17
suspended above it Pretty cool right How is that possible
- 09:21
Well after all it's not like gravity just goes away
- 09:24
once you hand over your ticket and get in the
- 09:26
machine What happens is that as the ride spins faster
- 09:30
and faster the force of your inertia becomes stronger and
- 09:34
stronger because your body wants to go straight it pushes
- 09:37
hard into the walls of the ride The spinning khun
- 09:40
get so fast that you can experience a force three
- 09:43
times stronger than gravity because you're being pushed into the
- 09:47
wall with so much force a force of inertia is
- 09:50
greater than the force of gravity so inertia wins and
- 09:54
you can lose contact with the ground without crashing down
- 09:57
and you know hopefully the contents of your stomach don't
- 10:00
come crashing up Okay so that makes sense But because
- 10:03
we've got circular motion we know we need us in
- 10:06
trip it'll force and it ain't gravity it's not friction
- 10:10
either In the gravity tron the centripetal force that's pushing
- 10:13
you toward the center of the circle is a normal
- 10:16
force The normal force provided by the walls of the
- 10:19
ride pushing back on you as your inertia pushes you
- 10:24
against the wall centripetal force can be a little tricky
- 10:27
Sometimes we really have to think about what's going on
- 10:29
to determine what's creating the force So next time you
- 10:33
feel like things are spinning out of control take a
- 10:36
second to think about where all that spinning is coming
- 10:38
from and hopefully you'll feel a centripetal force that keeps
- 10:42
you from flying outside of the circle because well when
- 10:45
that centripetal force let's go no other force that's not 00:10:50.488 --> [endTime] quite as nice
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