Re: Centrifugal force

[Robert Cohen <Robert.Cohen@PO-BOX.ESU.EDU>]

I've been surprised by the response to Skip Kilmer's original post,
whose content I agreed with.

I've always used "centripetal" to be the equivalent of "toward the
center" (or "center seeking") and "centrifugal" to be the equivalent of
"away from the center" (or "center fleeing").  If, as it appears from
this list, physicists automatically interpret "centrifugal" to mean the
"outward-pointing <something> associated with observing objects in a
rotating reference frame" then IMHO we've messed up a particular good
pair of adjectives.

____________________________________________________
Robert Cohen; 570-422-3428; www.esu.edu/~bbq
East Stroudsburg University; E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Forum for Physics Educators 
> [mailto:PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu] On Behalf Of Kilmer, Skip
> Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 1:19 PM
>
> This makes perfect sense, on physical and heuristic grounds. 
> If we li= mit the terms centrifugal and centripetal to 
> specify direction, just = like upward, downward, inward, etc, 
> our students are less likely to c= onfuse them with causes 
> (oops, don't want to open that one again.) skip