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what is meant by pseudo force?

what is meant by pseudo force?

Grade:11

1 Answers

Badiuddin askIITians.ismu Expert
148 Points
14 years ago

Dear Kumar

The physically apparent but nonexistent force needed by an observer in a noninertial frame to make Newton's laws of motion hold true. The centrifugal force is a pseudo force. Also called fictitious force.

Example

Acceleration in a straight line

Figure  (top) shows an accelerating car. When a car accelerates hard, the common human response is to feel "pushed back into the seat." In an inertial frame of reference attached to the road, there is no physical force moving the rider backward. However, in the rider's non-inertial reference frame attached to the accelerating car, there is a backward fictitious force. We mention two possible ways of analyzing the problem

  1. Figure  (center panel). From the viewpoint of an inertial reference frame with constant velocity matching the initial motion of the car, the car is accelerating. In order for the passenger to stay inside the car, a force must be exerted on the passenger. This force is exerted by the seat, which has started to move forward with the car and is compressed against the passenger until it transmits the full force to keep the passenger moving with the car. Thus, the passenger is accelerating in this frame due to the unbalanced force of the seat.
  2. Figure , (bottom panel). From the point of view of the interior of the car, an accelerating reference frame, there is a fictitious force pushing the passenger backwards, with magnitude equal to the mass of the passenger times the acceleration of the car. This force pushes the passenger back into the seat, until the seat compresses and provides an equal and opposite force. Thereafter, the passenger is stationary in this frame, because the fictitious force and the (real) force of the seat are balanced.

 


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Badiuddin

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