What is centrifugal forc?

Answer 1

Think of it this way. Let's say you have a yo-yo and let it unwind. Then you start swinging it around your head in a circle parallel to the ground. The force that keeps the yo-yo in its circular path is the centripetal force (centripetal = away from the center). Without it, the yo-yo would not continue in its circular path but would fly off in a straight line, which it is inclined to do. The tension in the string is the centripetalforce. The centrifugal force is a fictive force: it is, in fact, the "feeling of repulsion" caused by the yo-yo's inertia. Remember Newton's First Law : an object in motion tends to keep a linear path at a constant speed.

The fictitious (or apparent) force that appears to act away from the center of the point of application of the centripetal force is the centrifugal force; it's what you feel when you drive around a tight curve. Note that "nothing" is pushing you outward ... rather the car seat is pulling you inward.

Answer 2

Centrifugal force is the force that flings objects outwards from a rotating system of co-ordinates. Such as when you stand on a roundabout and consider your system to be fixed on the roundabout.

Physically it comes about because the partial derivatives of the motion relative to those co-ordinates is not the same as the physically meaningful derivative that appears in the equations of motion - there is an extra term called a "connection" or Christofell Symbols. Its that term that you feel as Centrifugal force.

The other force that you feel on a roundabout - is in the direction of rotation as you move inwards on the roundabout, or in the reverse direction as you move out, and is called Coriolis force.

Answer 3

Centrifugal force draws a rotating object away from the center of rotation.