In article , says...

"Ned Simmons"

What is it about the concept of centrifugal force that
peeves you so,
Phil? How do you feel about the "g-forces" one experiences
as a result
of linear acceleration?

Ned Simmons

What peeves me is the stubborn presentation of cf as fact in
reference
books when in reality it does not exist.

But it *does* exist in rotating frames of reference. You've simply
decided to confine your calculations to inertial frames (frames subject
only to uniform velocity) where cf, being a result of acceleration,
obviously cannot occur. It may make sense to exclude observations made
in non-inertial frames when teaching pure Newtonian physics, which is
perhaps what your prof was getting at, but there's no reason to limit
yourself this way if you find it convenient to do otherwise and you
recognize the consequences.

I can accept
'g-forces' in linear
acceleration, no problem there. The g-force in rotation is
centripetal
acceleration, similar to g-force in linear acceleration. A
weight swung
in a circle by a string is experiencing centripetal force.

Using a passenger in a car as an example, I'd say that (a)centripetal
force applied thru the tires as the car makes a turn and (b)the force
applied by the tires as the car accelerates on a straight are equivalent
and perfectly acceptable in a pure Newtonian analysis. Likewise (a)the
cf felt by the passenger in the turn and (b)the sensation of
acceleration on the straight are both inertial effects in an
accelerating frame of reference, and therefore can't exist in your
analysis. I'm not saying that's an incorrect way to model the system, on
the contrary, it's entirely consistent. But the fact that your model is
internally consistent doesn't exclude the possibility of cf in other
models that work just as well.

Ned Simmons