centrifugal acceleration

Acceleration, which comes from the Latin word acceleration, is he act and consequence of accelerating (cause an increase in speed). The term also refers to the magnitude that allows the expression of the speed increase in a time unit.

The adjective centrifugal, on the other hand, qualify that which distances itself from the center or has a tendency to move away from it. As for the center, it is the point located in the middle of something, which is equidistant from the boundaries or edges.

With these ideas of course, we can go on to define the concept of centrifugal acceleration. The notion is linked to the acceleration acquired by an object due to effect of a centrifugal force (a fictitious force that arises when describing the displacement of an object in a reference frame that is in rotation).

It can be said that this centrifugal force is part of the inertial forces: those resulting from the description of the displacement of an element or a system from a reference frame that is not inertial. The centrifugal force, in this way, is produced by the inertia of the objects when moving around an axis, since these objects show a tendency to maintain a tangential type trajectory with respect to the curve they make.

Centrifugal acceleration, therefore, increases as centrifugal force increases by increasing the mass of the object and the radius of gyration. It is important not to confuse between centrifugal acceleration and centripetal acceleration (the magnitude that is related to the alteration of the direction of the velocity of an object that moves following a curvilinear path).

It is said, therefore, that the centrifugal force is fictitious because the one that really acts on the body is the centripetal one, which is causally associated with the agents external to it. If we speak of a uniform circular movement, then it is directed towards the center of the trajectory and it is necessary for the change of direction of the speed to take place, since in the absence of this or another force the body would present a movement in a straight line to constant velocity.

Returning to centrifugal acceleration, this concept belonging to Newtonian or classical mechanics is defined as something that appreciates a non-inertial observer. Although the word "observer" is very common in everyday speech, in the field of physics it is understood as any entity that can carry out measurements of some physical magnitude in a given system, with the aim of obtaining data about your physical condition. In other words, he is someone who not only looks but has enough tools to express the scene in useful values ​​for the science.

With regard to the expression "non-inertial", we can say that in a reference frame of this type the fulfillment of Newton's laws of motion is not appreciated, the three principles that allow us to explain almost all the problems of classical mechanics, especially those that are linked to the movement of bodies. If they give us a reference system inertial, other is considered not inertial if it describes an accelerated movement in relation to the first.

Etymology can often help us to understand the terms in greater depth, or to memorize them if they are technicalities that we do not use frequently. In the precise case of centrifuge, we are before a composition that means «flee from the center«, Exactly what it represents in the case of the force described above.