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Re: centrifugal force (cont)



----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: centrifugal force (cont)


| Bob Sciamanda wrote:
|
| > The concept "real centrifugal force" has no place in either scheme. It
| > adopts the Newtonian word "force", but violates the Newtonian concept
| > "force". It is born of a subconscious desire to invoke a real force to
| > account for any and all accelerations - observed by any and all
| observers.
|
| The centrifugal field is equally as real as the
| gravitational field.
|
| If your point is that neither of these is properly
| a "force" field but rather an acceleration field,
| then I agree.

This is progress. I agree: centrifugal/coriolis accelerations=> YES;
centrifugal/coriolis (real) forces=> NO.

| It's a force per unit mass, i.e. an
| acceleration.

Force per unit mass is not any old acceleration - it is acceleration as
measured in an inertial frame.
(Note this is a Newtonian statement; in GR there are no
gravitational/inertial FORCES or forces per unit mass.)

| If you're going to say that centrifigual force doesn't
| exist then consistency requires saying that gravitational
| force doesn't exist. . . .

In the Einsteinian GR model, yes; neither force exists. In the Newtonian
model, no; the gravitational force is real in all frames, and in the
rotating frame the centrifugal force is apparent, the centrifugal
acceleration is real.

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor



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