the.com/centripetal
the relentless inward tug that keeps everything spinning instead of flying off into oblivion
means Describing a force or motion directed inward toward a center, the pull that keeps a spinning object curving in its circular path instead of flying off in a straight line.
from Coined in scientific Latin as centripetus, stitched together from centrum, 'center' (itself borrowed from Greek kentron, the sharp point of a compass that scribes a circle) and petere, 'to seek' — so quite literally 'center-seeking.' Its twin and rival, centrifugal ('center-fleeing,' from fugere, 'to flee'), names the opposite sensation. The pairing was made famous through 17th-century work on planetary motion and gravity, where the center-seeking pull became the key to why orbits orbit.
- latin roots
- centrum plus petere: seeking the center
- newton coined it
- he named the force in the Principia
- not centrifugal
- centrifugal is fake, a feeling not a force
- keeps orbits
- gravity is centripetal force for planets
- the moon falls
- perpetually falling toward earth, missing forever
large hadron collider — particle accelerator that uses centripetal force to bend proton paths in 27 km circular tunnel, cern switzerland
velodrome track cycling — banked 250m oval where cyclists lean 45+ degrees inward, relying on centripetal force at speeds over 60 kph