1. You overhear one of your fellow students in this course say: “If you are whir

Question

1. You overhear one of your fellow students in this course say:
“If you are whirling a ball around in a circle on the end of a string and the string breaks then the
ball is thrown away from the center of the circle by a centrifugal force.”

(a) After you’ve explained why the string is tight the student says:
“So what you are saying is that the ball goes around the circle because of the tension in the
string and because of the centripetal force?”
What flaw does your colleague still have in their understanding of circular motion?

Please support the answer with free body diagram if it is possible

Explanation / Answer

The colleague still thinks that the ball will be thrown a way from the center of the circle. In fact it will be thrown in a tangential direction in which it is moving at the point when the string breaks. This is due the tangential force dv/dt acting on the ball at every instant

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