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A centripetal force (from Latin centrum, "center" and petere, "to seek" [1]) is a force that makes a body follow a curved path.The direction of the centripetal force is always orthogonal to the motion of the body and towards the fixed point of the instantaneous center of curvature of the path.
Unlike tangential acceleration, centripetal acceleration is present in both uniform and non-uniform circular motion. This diagram shows the normal force (n) pointing in other directions rather than opposite to the weight force. In non-uniform circular motion, the normal force does not always point to the opposite direction of weight.
Consequently, the acceleration is the second derivative of position, [7] often written . Position, when thought of as a displacement from an origin point, is a vector: a quantity with both magnitude and direction. [9]: 1 Velocity and acceleration are vector quantities as well. The mathematical tools of vector algebra provide the means to ...
A vector field on a plane can be visualized as a collection of arrows with given magnitudes and directions, each attached to a point on the plane. Vector fields are often used to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout three dimensional space, such as the wind, or the strength and direction of some force, such ...
Centripetal force causes the acceleration measured on the rotating surface of the Earth to differ from the acceleration that is measured for a free-falling body: the apparent acceleration in the rotating frame of reference is the total gravity vector minus a small vector toward the north–south axis of the Earth, corresponding to staying ...
The whole path is continuous, and its pieces are smooth. Now assume a point particle moves with constant speed along this path, so its tangential acceleration is zero. The centripetal acceleration given by v 2 / r is normal to the arc and inward.
The same reasoning used with respect to the position of a particle to define velocity, can be applied to the velocity to define acceleration. The acceleration of a particle is the vector defined by the rate of change of the velocity vector. The average acceleration of a particle over a time interval is defined as the ratio.
Newton's law of motion for a particle of mass m written in vector form is: = , where F is the vector sum of the physical forces applied to the particle and a is the absolute acceleration (that is, acceleration in an inertial frame) of the particle, given by: = , where r is the position vector of the particle (not to be confused with radius, as ...