Centrifugal force?

[Dr Jekyll]

I appreciate the argument that it doesn't exit, newton's first law and all that. But it's a useful concept all the same. My view is that there is certainly such a thing as centrifugal force. It isn't technically a force, but we all know what we mean.

[Dr Jekyll]

No I don't. If I spin a bucket of water around my head it's centripetal force keeping the water in the bucket. But if the base of the bucket gives way and water goes all over everywhere it isn't a force at all that distributes the water, it's just carrying on with the same velocity in the absence of a force. But it's useful to have a name for it and centrifugal force is understood even if it annoys pedants.

Edited by Dr Jekyll on Wednesday 9th April 15:29

[Dr Jekyll]

Engineer1 said:

Centrifugal force doesn't exist, Centripetal force does if you cut the string on the bucket it would fly off at a tangent to the curve it was describing.

Whatever causes it to fly off is not a force, it's flying off because it is no longer being acted on by centripetal force. It's useful to have way to describe the tendency of such buckets to fly off in these situations, and everyone knows what is meant by 'centrifugal force', so let's call it centrifugal force.

You may as well object to references to 'Sea Horses' because they aren't really Horses.