The Centrifugal Force

some nobel prize winners!

Feynman's attempt to 'understand' the centrifugal force
is quite eye-opening



my own understanding of the centrifugal force seems so logical
that i thought it was conventionally understood

http://www.flight-light-and-spin.com/centrifugal%20force.htm

Jonathan Ainsley Bain wrote:

my own understanding of the centrifugal force seems so logical
that i thought it was conventionally understood

You say that "B is a typical fairground attraction. A person at position B is pulled to the inner rim by the force of the spinning object acting on the air through friction. The air in contact with the surface wants to move in the same manner as the black arrow in diagram A. But due to the air being in contact with other air which is in contact with the rim, all the air within the spinning object is subject to the centrifugal force. The air nearest the middle of the circle experiences less force, but as there is less of it being acted on by more air at B; the force spreads out quite uniformly.

The inner rim forces the air into a circle so anything in contact with the air is pulled along with it. This is why one sticks to the rim at the fairground. The air inside the spinning object is behaving according to the same set of vectors as A."

Based on this it is apparent that no centrifugal force will be present if the experiment is repeated in a vacuum. Would you agree?

Only if the vacuum is beyond the gravitational pull of the Earth itself.

If the force of gravity pulls down onto the floor, then the friction of the floor
acts in the same manner as the air, and the pull will be outwards.

In this diagram:



there will be no force if there is no contact with the space station.

D has no force acting on it.
C is pulled on by the centrifugal force.

Certainly the distant nebulae have zero affect.