CENTRIFUGAL FORCE (yuk! my favourite hate!)

When a sock spins in a spin dryer, or you spin in a fairground spinner, "you get thrown outwards by centrifugal force"….you can feel it….it pushes you into the wall!!!
WRONG!
If anything is to go round in a circle it must have a force PUSHING IT INWARDS TOWARDS THE CENTRE OF THE CIRCLE.
ie..the pull of a string on something being swirled round
Gravitational pull of the Sun on the Earth, or of the Earth on the Moon
Electrical pull of a nucleus (positive) on an electron (negative)
The push of the road onto a tyre when a car turns.
Without a force towards the centre of the circle, the object will carry on in a straight line!
When you feel a force on you when you are in a fairground spinner…it is the wall pushing you INWARDS making you go round in a circle.
The force towards the centre is correctly called the CENTRIPETAL FORCE.

For a slightly more detailed approach: imagine a spin dryer which spins horizontally not vertically, and imagine the sock sitting on the floor. As the tub starts to spin the sock goes round in a circle because of the frictional force from the floor of the tub. But the faster the sock goes the more the force is required. Eventually the sock is going too fast for the maximum value of friction so the sock slides and goes in a straight line, which is a tangent to the circle. It slides until it is stopped by the wall of the tub, which can then supply as much force as is needed to make the sock go in a circle.

RETURN TO MAIN PAGE