What is centrifugal force?

We are all familiar with the effects of centrifugal force, we

experience it for example every time we are in a car and take a
bend - we feel a force pushing us to the outside of the curve. If, for
example, you have placed your sunglasses on the seat next to you
it would come as no surprise if, when taking a sharp bend at speed,
they slide across the seat.
Centrifugal force is sometimes referred to as a 'fictitious' force,
because it is present only for an accelerated obect and does not
exist in an inertial frame. !n inertial frame is where an obect
moves in a straight line at a constant speed. "ut #instein's general
theory of relativity allows observers even in a non-inertial frame to
regard themselves at rest, and the forces they feel to be real.
Centrifugal force is not fictitious, it is a real force.
Centrifugal force arises due to the property of mass known as
inertia - the reluctance of a body to change either its speed or
direction. ! body that is at rest will stay at rest until some force
makes it move, and then will continue to move at the same speed
and in the same direction unless and until some force changes the
way it is moving. $his is all neatly summed up by Isaac %ewton's
three laws of motion.
I. #very obect in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that
state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. &$his is
sometimes referred to as $he 'aw of Inertia(
II. $he relationship between an obect's mass m, its acceleration a,
and the applied force ) is ) * ma.
III. )or every action there is an e+ual and opposite reaction.
We can illustrate 'inertial frames' by using the example of an
astronaut in a space ship. 'et's imagine that we have an astronaut
aboard a space ship that has no windows, and we are at the controls
to which our astronaut has no access to. We ask our astronaut to
perform any experiment that he may wish in order to determine if
the spaceship is moving or at rest. We start our experiment with the
ship at rest and ask our astronaut if we are moving. ,e replies that
he is in -ero gravity floating around the ship and is unable to detect
any feeling of movement, and that by carrying out various tests -
such as measuring a swinging pendulum, he is still unable to detect
any movement and concludes that we must be at rest. We then fire
up the engine and accelerate through space, and keep accelerating,
and again ask if we are moving. $his time our astronaut is certain
that we are accelerating, he is forced to the back of the ship, by
inertia, and the more we accelerate the stronger this force becomes.
If he drops an obect it will 'fall' to the rear of the ship, which has
now - as far as he is concerned - become the 'floor'. If we udge our
speed of acceleration ust right, we can create a force that is
exactly e+ual to the force of gravity, known as ./, and this is
indistinguishable from gravity in every respect. %o matter what
experiment our astronaut performs, it would be impossible to tell if
he is in a vehicle accelerating at ./, or stationary on the surface of
the #arth. $his is the basis of #instein's general theory of relativity,
that the effects of acceleration are indistinguishable from the
effects of a uniform gravitational field. $his is known as the
'e+uivalence principle' and results from the e+uivalence between
gravitational mass and inertial mass.
We now start to slow down our space ship, as we can see a speed
camera coming up, and again ask our astronaut if we are moving.
!gain he replies that we are definitely moving, as the sudden
slowing down caused him to be thrown forward and collide with
the front bulkhead, and he mutters something to the effect that as
his nose is bleeding and he is pressed flat against the bulkhead he
doesn't feel it necessary to perform any experiments to confirm our
movement.
We now stop decelerating and allow the ship to coast along at a
uniform speed of .00,000 mph, which is now well within the legal
speed limit for this part of space. We ask our astronaut once more
if we are moving, and he replies that as far as he is able to tell
while freely floating around in a -ero gravity environment, that we
are not moving.
1ur little experiment has demonstrated that if the ship is travelling
at a uniform speed in a uniform direction it is not possible, by any
means whatsoever, to determine whether or not it is moving, It is
only when the ship changes speed, either by accelerating or
decelerating that the movement becomes apparent.
2o what happens if we change direction instead of changing speed3
'et's return to our space ship and find out. We accelerate back to
.00,000 mph and maintain this speed and direction, at which point
our astronaut with the sore nose is again in 'free fall' - a state of
weightlessness - and unable to detect any motion. We now put our
space ship into a tight turn to the right and hold the curve, and ask
our astronaut if we are moving. ,e replies that as he is pressed
hard against the left side of the ship we must be moving, and adds
that as he knows that the space ship is unable to move sideways, it
cannot be accelerating in the opposite direction to the force, so it
must be turning to the right.
2o far so good, all pretty straight forward stuff really, so what's the
problem3
$he problem is that we have seen that centrifugal force is a result
of inertia, an obect's resistance to a change in direction. When the
space ship turned to the right the astronaut tried to keep going in
the original direction, straight ahead, and so was forced to the left
side of the ship. $hat makes sense, it is perfectly understandable
according to %ewton's first law of motion. "ut let's consider
another movement that we can introduce using our space ship, let's
rotate it about its axis.
If we now rotate our space ship about its axis, give it a spin, what
happens to our astronaut3 ,e will again be pressed against the side
of the ship, providing he is in contact with it and moving with it.
$he +uestion is W,4 is he pressed against the side of the ship3
$he ship is not accelerating, nor is it changing direction, and the
rate of spin can be kept constant, but centrifugal force will keep
our astronaut firmly pinned against the side of the ship for as long
as it continues to spin.
We can illustrate the central problem of explaining the nature of
centrifugal force by examining how a spin drier removes water
from clothes. We put wet clothes in, turn the machine on, and the
drum spins around at high speed throwing out the water due to
centrifugal force. 2imple. $he +uestion is how do the clothes
'know' that they are spinning3 #asy, you say, the drum is spinning
in relation to the drier, and the clothes rotate with the drum. If only
it were that simple5
We can imagine an arrangement whereby the drum, and hence the
clothes, are kept stationary while the drier rotates rapidly about the
drum, the opposite to what normally happens of course. %ow if the
drum rotating in relation to the drier was all that was re+uired for
centrifugal force to draw the water out, then this arrangement
would work in exactly the same manner as the more conventional
arrangement. 4ou do not, however, need to be a rocket scientist to
be able to tell that this arrangement would not dry the clothes5 $his
very effectively destroys the argument that the clothes know they
are rotating because of their movement in relation to the drier. $he
movement must be a movement in relation to something else. $he
next logical step is to argue that in the last example it was obvious
that the drum was not really moving, only the drier was, so let's
extend the area. $his time we will imagine the drum remaining
still, ust as before, but this time we will rotate not only the drier,
but the entire room, around the drum. Will that make any
difference3 !gain we can see that this arrangement wouldn't work
either, because from our vantage point from outside the room we
can see that the drum isn't 'really' rotating. $his does present a
problem though. Imagine that we have constructed a large spin
drier and we sit inside the drum and the door is closed behind us.
$he drum again stays still but the drier, and the entire room rotate
about us. $he view that we see through the door would make us
feel +uite di--y, but we would know that we are not moving
because we would feel no forces acting upon us, we would not be
pressed against the sides of the drum.
If we now return to our astronaut in the rotating space ship, he was
pressed against the sides of the ship, so what is the difference3
What in 'empty' space is the space ship rotating in relation to3
Isaac %ewton thought about this problem of centrifugal force and
came to the conclusion that there must exist a 'preferred frame of
reference' in the 6niverse, defined by absolute space. $his is ust
another way of saying that there must be a special place in the
6niverse that all motion can be related to. If this is the case, our
wet clothes would know they are rotating, and hence fling out the
water, because they are rotating in relation to this special fixed
point in the 6niverse. $his would also explain why it would not be
possible to 'fool' the clothes into thinking they are rotating by
rotating the drier instead. It is interesting to note however, that if
we kept extending outward our rotating frame about the stationary
drum, eventually the water would be thrown out because the entire
universe would be rotating in relation to the drum, which is the
exactly the same thing as the universe remaining stationary and the
drum rotating5 It may be that the same effect would happen if the
rotating frame was ust our galaxy instead of the entire universe,
we don't know.
#nter #rnst 7ach, an !ustrian philosopher and physicist &.898-
.:.;( whose ideas were to later influence !lbert #instein when he
was developing his ideas on the general theory of relativity. It was
#instein who gave the name '7ach's <rinciple'. It was in honour of
7ach's work on shock waves associated with proectiles moving
through the air that the 7ach numbers of speed were named after
him= a speed of 7ach . is e+ual to the speed of sound, 7ach >
twice the speed of sound, and so on.
7ach proposed &7ach's principle( that inertia is caused by the
interaction of an obect with all of the other matter in the
Universe. It will be remembered that %ewton believed that all
motion was relative to some universal preferred frame of reference.
$hirty years later, /eorge "erkeley, argued that all motion is
relative, and must be measured against something. 2ince 'absolute
space' cannot be perceived, that would not do as a reference point,
he said. ,e argued that if only a single globe existed in the
6niverse it would be meaningless to talk about any movement of
that globe. #ven if there were two globes, both perfectly smooth, in
orbit around one another, it would not be possible to measure that
motion. "ut 'suppose that the heaven of fixed stars was suddenly
created and we shall be in a position to imagine the motions of the
globes by their relative position to the different parts of the
Universe'. What "erkeley is arguing, is that in effect, it is because
the clothes in your spin drier know that they are rotating relative to
the distant stars that causes the water to be thrown out. "erkeley
also argued that it is the same for acceleration in straight lines=
"erkeley's reasoning would be that the push into the back of the
seat that you feel when a car accelerates is because your body
knows that it is being accelerated relative to the distant stars and
galaxies.
7ach did not add a great deal to the ideas put forward by "erkeley,
but did put forward the suggestion that if we want to explain the
e+uatorial bulge of the #arth as due to centrifugal forces, 'it does
not matter if we think of the Earth as turning round on its axis, or
at rest while the fixed stars revolve around it'. It is the relative
motion that is responsible for the bulge.'
What "erkeley and 7ach suggest, that it is the 'fixed stars' which
provide a frame of reference, raises another +uestion. $he 'fixed
stars', as we are well aware today, are not in fact 'fixed', but are
actually part of a system that is itself rotating - our own 7ilky Way
galaxy. #ven before 7ach was born, William ,erschel and other
astronomers had provided good evidence that the 7ilky Way is a
flattened disc of stars, its shape clearly determined by rotation and
centrifugal force. 7ach might well have argued that there was only
two ways in which the whole galaxy could be seen to be under the
influence of centrifugal force. #ither %ewton was right, and the
whole system of 'fixed stars' is rotating relative to absolute, empty
space= or "erkeley and 7ach were right, and there must be some
distribution of matter, far across the 6niverse, that enables a frame
of reference against which the rotation of our /alaxy is measured.
!nother example of centrifugal force that is well known to us is
demonstrated by obects in orbit, such as satellites or the
International 2pace 2tation &I22(, or indeed the 7oon. $he
difference here is that astronauts aboard the I22 do not experience
the effects of centrifugal force as they orbit around the #arth, they
are not pushed away from the direction of the #arth. Why not3 $o
begin, let's examine how an obect gets into #arth orbit and stays
there, 'unsupported'.
Imagine having a large and powerful cannon, the more gunpowder
packed behind the cannon ball the further it will travel. %ow
imagine setting up our super powerful cannon and firing it so that
the cannon ball lands say .,000 miles away. %ow pack in more
gunpowder and fire again, this time it will have travelled further,
say >,000 miles, before falling to the ground. ?eep repeating the
exercise and adding more gunpowder every time, and every time
the cannon ball is fired it will travel further before it falls to the
ground. #ventually, with enough power behind it, it will go all the
way around the world before falling to the ground, and will have
almost reached its starting point - it will land ust behind you. %ow,
by packing in even more gun-powder, and getting ust the right
traectory, it will over-shoot you and keep on going, it will not
land. What the cannon ball is now doing is permanently arcing
back down towards the #arth, but the curve of the #arth is falling
away at the same rate, the cannon ball never 'catches up' with it.
$his is known as being in @free fall', the cannon ball is in orbit.
1ur astronaut aboard the I22 is in free fall, ust like the cannon
ball. $he I22 - and the astronauts - are prevented from being
thrown out of orbit &like the water thrown out of the clothes in the
spin drier( by the force of gravity. $his balancing force is called
centripetal force, and keeps the I22 in a closed orbit. "ecause the
centrifugal force is exactly balanced by the centripetal force of
gravity the astronauts aboard the I22 will not feel any sensation of
centrifugal force. $his is another example of the e+uivalence
principle, which says that the effects of gravity and acceleration are
indistinguishable from one another, and in this particular case they
exactly cancel each other out.
If you were in a lift that was at the top of a very tall building and
the cable snapped, as it hurtled towards the ground you would be
in free fall ust as the astronauts are aboard the I22. 4ou would be
able to freely float about inside the lift and enoy the sensation of
being weightless, until you reached the ground. It was by
employing this trick that the directors of the film '!pollo .9' were
able to film the 'astronauts' in a weightless environment. $hey ust
hired a plane, fitted out the interior to look like the the !pollo
module, and after having climbed to a suitable altitude nosed the
plane down and allowed it to 'fall' towards the ground. ,ey presto,
'look mum, I'm floating in space5'
We can create a weightless condition while still on #arth, we ust
have to fall. We can duplicate the force of gravity in a gravity free
environment by acceleration. We can rotate an obect and create
centrifugal force, but we are unable to explain how centrifugal
force works. Is it %ewton's preferred frame of reference of absolute
space3 1r 7ach's and "erkeley's idea that it is the average
distribution of matter across the 6niverse3 $here has to be some
way that an obect knows that it is rotating in relation to something.
We do not really know how it works. /eneral relativity and 7ach's
<rinciple seem to suggest that it is connected to the average density
of matter in the 6niverse, but is unable to explain how this could
be done. Aecently, a group of physicists have speculated that
inertia arises from charged matter &electrons, atoms etc( moving
through the physical vacuum which acts differently along the
direction of motion and behind the particle so that inertia is
actually a +uantum mechanical effect produced locally, not by
distant matter. Boesn't help much though does it3