8. Centripetal Forces & Gravitation

Uniform Circular Motion

Open Question
At its Ames Research Center, NASA uses its large '20-G' centrifuge to test the effects of very large accelerations ('hypergravity') on test pilots and astronauts. In this device, an arm 8.84 m long rotates about one end in a horizontal plane, and an astronaut is strapped in at the other end. Suppose that he is aligned along the centrifuge's arm with his head at the outermost end. The maximum sustained acceleration to which humans are subjected in this device is typically 12.5g. (b) What is the difference between the acceleration of his head and feet if the astronaut is 2.00 m tall?
Open Question
At its Ames Research Center, NASA uses its large '20-G' centrifuge to test the effects of very large accelerations ('hypergravity') on test pilots and astronauts. In this device, an arm 8.84 m long rotates about one end in a horizontal plane, and an astronaut is strapped in at the other end. Suppose that he is aligned along the centrifuge's arm with his head at the outermost end. The maximum sustained acceleration to which humans are subjected in this device is typically 12.5g. (a) How fast must the astronaut's head be moving to experience this maximum acceleration?
Open Question
A model of a helicopter rotor has four blades, each 3.40 m long from the central shaft to the blade tip. The model is rotated in a wind tunnel at 550 rev/min. (b) What is the radial acceleration of the blade tip expressed as a multiple of g?
Open Question
A model of a helicopter rotor has four blades, each 3.40 m long from the central shaft to the blade tip. The model is rotated in a wind tunnel at 550 rev/min. (a) What is the linear speed of the blade tip, in m/s?
Open Question
The earth has a radius of 6380 km and turns around once on its axis in 24 h. (b) If arad at the equator is greater than g, objects will fly off the earth's surface and into space. (We will see the reason for this in Chapter 5.) What would the period of the earth's rotation have to be for this to occur?
Open Question
The earth has a radius of 6380 km and turns around once on its axis in 24 h. (a) What is the radial acceleration of an object at the earth's equator? Give your answer in m/s2 and as a fraction of g.
Open Question
Communications satellites are placed in a circular orbit where they stay directly over a fixed point on the equator as the earth rotates. These are called geosynchronous orbits. The radius of the earth is 6.37 x 10⁶ m, and the altitude of a geosynchronous orbit is 3.58 x 10⁷ m (≈ 22,000 miles). What are (a) the speed and (b) the magnitude of the acceleration of a satellite in a geosynchronous orbit?
Open Question
The radius of the earth's very nearly circular orbit around the sun is 1.5 x 10^11m. Find the magnitude of the earth's (b) angular velocity
Open Question
The radius of the earth's very nearly circular orbit around the sun is 1.5 x 10^11m. Find the magnitude of the earth's (a) velocity
Open Question
As the earth rotates, what is the speed of (a) a physics student in Miami, Florida, at latitude 26 degrees
Open Question
The earth's radius is about 4000 miles. Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and Singapore are both nearly on the equator. The distance between them is 5000 miles. The flight from Kampala to Singapore takes 9.0 hours. What is the plane's angular velocity with respect to the earth's surface? Give your answer in degrees/h.
Open Question
Peregrine falcons are known for their maneuvering ability. In a tight circular turn, a falcon can attain a centripetal acceleration 1.5 times the free-fall acceleration. What is the radius of the turn if the falcon is flying at 25 m/s?
Open Question
(I) A jet plane traveling 1890 km/h (525 m/s) pulls out of a dive by moving in an arc of radius 4.80 km. What is the plane's acceleration in g's?
Open Question
(II) A bug walks outward from the center of a turntable that is rotating at 65 rpm. If the coefficient of static friction between the bug and the turntable is 0.42, how far out from the center does the bug get before it starts to slip on the turntable? What happens to the bug after it moves farther out past that point?
Open Question
(II) A coin is placed 10.5 cm from the axis of a rotating turntable of variable speed. When the speed of the turntable is slowly increased, the coin remains fixed on the turntable until a rate of 38.0 rpm (revolutions per minute) is reached, at which point the coin slides off. What is the coefficient of static friction between the coin and the turntable?