fake forces
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Pouring tea in a plane – upside down
Posted by Rhett Allain on August 17, 2010 Let me start with the video. Here is a guy flying a plane in a barrel roll and pouring some tea at the same time. Talk about multitasking. How can he pour upside down? Well, there are two ways to look at this. First, I can look at this in the frame of the plane.…
When the centrifugal force is the centripetal force
Posted by Rhett Allain on April 26, 2009 It’s odd that I have talked about these forces so much. First, I talked about how centrifugal forces were not real and the difference between centrifugal and centripetal forces. Then I talked about how sometimes, fake forces are good. Finally, I talked about the origin of the words centrifugal and centripetal. (note: “talked about” means…
Fake Forces – sometimes they are Fantastic
Posted by Rhett Allain on March 31, 2009 What is a fake force? A fake force is one of those forces that introductory texts tell you aren’t real – like centrifugal force. They aren’t real in the sense that they are due to one of the fundamental interactions. Basically, introductory texts (and even blogs like this one – not a bad summary of…
Centripetal Force, Centrifugal Force – what’s the deal?
Posted by Rhett Allain on February 7, 2009 A couple of commenters expressed concern over the use of centrifugal force after my rant on the use of the word force. So, what is the deal with these two terms? Are they ok to use? Are they real forces?