Thursday, July 12, 2007

Nonuniform Circular Motion


Any object moving in a circle has a centripetal acceleration,
directed toward the center of that circle.
It has a centripetal force acting on it, also directed toward the center of that circle.
"Directed toward the center"="radially".
Any object moving in a circle has a radial acceleration.
That means it has a radial force acting on it.
In addition, the object may be accelerating tangentially , along the direction tangential to the circle or perpendicular to the radius.
Then there is also a tangential force or the net force has a tangential component as well as the radial component.
The total or net acceleration is the vector sum of the radial and tangential components.
The total or net force is the vector sum of the radial and tangential components.

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