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A non-inertial reference frame (also known as an accelerated reference frame [1]) is a frame of reference that undergoes acceleration with respect to an inertial frame. [2] An accelerometer at rest in a non-inertial frame will, in general, detect a non-zero acceleration. While the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames, in non ...
An example of the detection of a non-inertial, rotating reference frame is the precession of a Foucault pendulum. In the non-inertial frame of the Earth, the fictitious Coriolis force is necessary to explain observations. In an inertial frame outside the Earth, no such fictitious force is necessary.
A rotating frame of reference is a special case of a non-inertial reference frame that is rotating relative to an inertial reference frame. An everyday example of a rotating reference frame is the surface of the Earth. (This article considers only frames rotating about a fixed axis. For more general rotations, see Euler angles.) In the inertial ...
An observational frame (such as an inertial frame or non-inertial frame of reference) is a physical concept related to state of motion. A coordinate system is a mathematical concept, amounting to a choice of language used to describe observations. [ 3 ]
In the inertial frame of reference (upper part of the picture), the black ball moves in a straight line. However, the observer (brown dot) who is standing in the rotating/non-inertial frame of reference (lower part of the picture) sees the object as following a curved path due to the Coriolis and centrifugal forces present in this frame.
For example, a freely falling elevator is a proper frame for a free-falling object in the elevator, while the surface of the Earth is not. But, for an object on the Earth's surface, the Earth's surface is a proper frame while the falling elevator is not a proper frame. Proper frames can be inertial and non-inertial, as in the example above.
The rod and grate paradox is complicated: it involves non-inertial frames of reference since at one moment the man is walking horizontally, and a moment later he is falling downward; and it involves a physical deformation of the man (or segmented rod), since the rod is bent in one frame of reference and straight in another.
In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called an inertial space or a Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference in which objects exhibit inertia: they remain at rest or in uniform motion relative to the frame until acted upon by external forces. In such a frame the laws of nature can be observed ...