Re: Problem

["Carl E. Mungan" <mungan@USNA.EDU>]

> Similarly I've seen two names for the other component
>
> 1) Centripetal acceleration
> 2) perpendicular component

Actually one of my pet peeves is that there is another common name
which many textbooks use:
3) radial acceleration

YUCK! Both Serway and Giancoli are culprits in this respect for
instance. Radial is almost a synonym for centripetal in the circular
case. But for arbitrary 2D motion, they mean quite different things
and confusing them only obscures the usual method of deriving the
Coriolis and centrifugal terms, for example.

Even in the circular case, I would say centripetal and radial differ,
namely by their sign.

IMHO, there are at least 3 pairs of components of the acceleration
vector in 2D. Different problems lend themselves naturally to a
particular choice:

1. (a_x, a_y) rectangular
2. (a_c, a_t) centripetal/tangential
3. (a_r, a_theta) plane polar

I've summarized my take on this at:
http://physics.usna.edu/physics/faculty/mungan/Scholarship/Acceleration.pdf
(My "prime" nomenclature is admittedly a bit ugly. Suggestions for a
better notation gladly welcomed.)
--
Carl E. Mungan, Asst. Prof. of Physics  410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
      U.S. Naval Academy, Stop 9C, Annapolis, MD 21402-5026
mungan@usna.edu    http://physics.usna.edu/physics/faculty/mungan/