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v. t. e. In physics, circular motion is a movement of an object along the circumference of a circle or rotation along a circular arc. It can be uniform, with a constant rate of rotation and constant tangential speed, or non-uniform with a changing rate of rotation. The rotation around a fixed axis of a three-dimensional body involves the ...
v. t. e. 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. Isaac Newton described it as "a force by ...
Newton's cannonball is a thought experiment that interpolates between projectile motion and uniform circular motion. A cannonball that is lobbed weakly off the edge of a tall cliff will hit the ground in the same amount of time as if it were dropped from rest, because the force of gravity only affects the cannonball's momentum in the downward ...
In classical mechanics, a reactive centrifugal force forms part of an action–reaction pair with a centripetal force . In accordance with Newton's first law of motion, an object moves in a straight line in the absence of a net force acting on the object. A curved path ensues when a force that is orthogonal to the object's motion acts on it ...
Unlike the other two fictitious forces, the centrifugal force always points radially outward from the axis of rotation of the rotating frame, with magnitude , where is the component of the position vector perpendicular to , and unlike the Coriolis force in particular, it is independent of the motion of the particle in the rotating frame.
With these two forces balanced, in the rotating frame the only unbalanced force is Coriolis (also present only in the rotating frame), and the motion is an inertial circle. Analysis and observation of circular motion in the rotating frame is a simplification compared with analysis and observation of elliptical motion in the inertial frame.
The animations below depict the motion of a simple (frictionless) pendulum with increasing amounts of initial displacement of the bob, or equivalently increasing initial velocity. The small graph above each pendulum is the corresponding phase plane diagram; the horizontal axis is displacement and the vertical axis is velocity. With a large ...
Newton's theorem simplifies orbital problems in classical mechanics by eliminating inverse-cube forces from consideration. The radial and angular motions, r (t) and θ1 (t), can be calculated without the inverse-cube force; afterwards, its effect can be calculated by multiplying the angular speed of the particle.