Educator

Motion in Two Dimensions, Part 2: Circular Dimension

• If an object moves with constant speed along a circle, it will experience a centripetal force, directed toward the center of the circle.
• In the example of the Earth rotating around the sun, we can calculate the speed of the Earth from our knowledge of the distance between the earth and the sun, and that the period of rotation is one year.
• If the speed of an object, moving in a circular path, changes with time, then in addition to the centripetal acceleration there is also tangential acceleration. The net acceleration is the vector sum of the centripetal and tangential accelerations.