----- 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.