Can you be more explicit?

Submitted by life-long learner (not verified) on September 12, 2007 - 15:36.

Can you be more explicit? I'm intrigued by your statement that a ficticious force "is not a force at all."

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_force):

"A fictitious force, also called a pseudo force[1] or d'Alembert force[2], is an apparent force that acts on all masses in a non-inertial frame of reference such as a rotating reference frame. The force F does not arise from any physical interaction, but rather from the acceleration a of the non-inertial reference frame itself. Due to Newton's second law F = ma, fictitious forces are always proportional to the mass m being acted upon."

What misconception is being perpetuated?

Reply

Share your thoughts on this story. Please increase the credibility of your post by including your name and city, and by demonstrating respect for others' opinions. Comments will not appear immediately; all comments are moderated and will be posted in order of submission.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options