Circular Motion Lab
Explore Uniform Circular Motion and vertical circular paths with slack tension projectile simulation.
Non-Inertial Reference Frames 🖖
Uniform circular motion implies continuous orthogonal acceleration vectors...
Centripetal force is a job, not a force 🖖
Nothing labelled centripetal ever pushes an object; the word just names whichever real force happens to point toward the centre — tension in a string, gravity for a satellite, friction for a turning car. It always aims inward, along the radius. The concrete takeaway: cut the string and the ball does not fly straight outward — it leaves along the tangent in a straight line, because no force is left to keep bending its path.
Roller-coaster loops are teardrops, not circles 🖖
A truly circular vertical loop needs a high entry speed, and whipping through the bottom at that speed would crush riders with brutal g-forces. Because the minimum speed at the very top is only √(gr) — independent of mass — engineers tighten the radius near the top and widen it at the bottom, giving the teardrop clothoid (Euler spiral) shape pioneered by Werner Stengel in 1976. Less speed needed up high, gentler g-forces down low.