ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Physics Videos 34 videos

Physics: Isaac Newton
33 Views

Isaac Newton. Who was he? Why do we need to know about him? In a physics course, no less? Well, he's only the most famous physicist in history, and...

Physics: The Basics of Trigonometry
35 Views

What are the basics of trigonometry? And why are we learning about this in a physics course? Both good questions. In this video, you'll learn about...

Physics: Unit Analysis and Graphical Data Analysis
36 Views

It's time to make our liters and meters work together. Enough of the bickering, right? In this video, we'll do some unit analysis, covering SI Unit...

See All

Physics: Centripetal vs Centrifugal Forces: Fiction in Physics 5 Views


Share It!


Description:

Hit play to learn about centripetal and centrifugal forces.

Language:
English Language
Subjects:

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

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

Related Videos

Jane Eyre Summary
123034 Views

When you're about to marry the love of your life, not many things could stop you. However, finding out that your future hubby is keeping his crazy...

What is Shmoop?
91430 Views

Here at Shmoop, we work for kids, not just the bottom line. Founded by David Siminoff and his wife Ellen Siminoff, Shmoop was originally conceived...

ACT Math 4.5 Elementary Algebra
492 Views

ACT Math: Elementary Algebra Drill 4, Problem 5. What is the solution to the problem shown?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.1 Passage Drill 1
1039 Views

AP® English Literature and Composition Passage Drill 1, Problem 1. Which literary device is used in lines 31 to 37?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.1 Passage Drill 2
683 Views

AP® English Literature and Composition Passage Drill 2, Problem 1. What claim does Bacon make that contradicts the maxim "Whatsoever is delig...