Monday, 11/3: Centripetal Acceleration and Centripetal Force

Today we introduced centripetal acceleration and centripetal force. The lead-in to these topics was the majority of the class, and cannot be reproduced here, but I can give you the final equations for these quantities:

Centripetal acceleration:

a_c = v²/r

Centripetal force:

F_c = mv²/r

"Centripetal" means "center seeking" and refers to the fact that these vector quantities always point to the center of the circle.