What is "centrifugal force"

Force \Force\, n. [F. force, LL. forcia, fortia, fr. L. fortis strong. See Fort, n.]

1. Capacity of exercising an influence or producing an effect; strength or energy of body or mind; active power; vigor; might; often, an unusual degree of strength or energy; especially, power to persuade, or convince, or impose obligation; pertinency; validity; special signification; as, the force of an appeal, an argument, a contract, or a term.

   He was, in the full force of the words, a good man.
   --Macaulay.

2. Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion; as, by force of arms; to take by force.

   Which now they hold by force, and not by right.
   --Shak.

3. Strength or power for war; hence, a body of land or naval combatants, with their appurtenances, ready for action; -- an armament; troops; warlike array; -- often in the plural; hence, a body of men prepared for action in other ways; as, the laboring force of a plantation; the armed forces.

   Is Lucius general of the forces?
   --Shak.

4. (Law)

   1. Strength or power exercised without law, or contrary to law, upon persons or things; violence.

   2. Validity; efficacy.
      --Burrill.

5. (Physics) Any action between two bodies which changes, or tends to change, their relative condition as to rest or motion; or, more generally, which changes, or tends to change, any physical relation between them, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, or of any other kind; as, the force of gravity; cohesive force; centrifugal force.

   Animal force (Physiol.), muscular force or energy.

   Catabiotic force [Gr. ? down (intens.) + ? life.] (Biol.), the influence exerted by living structures on adjoining cells, by which the latter are developed in harmony with the primary structures.

   Centrifugal force, Centripetal force, Coercive force, etc. See under Centrifugal, Centripetal, etc.

   Composition of forces, Correlation of forces, etc. See under Composition, Correlation, etc.

   Force and arms [trans. of L. vi et armis] (Law), an expression in old indictments, signifying violence.

   In force, or Of force, of unimpaired efficacy; valid; of full virtue; not suspended or reversed. ``A testament is of force after men are dead.''
   --Heb. ix. 17.

   Metabolic force (Physiol.), the influence which causes and controls the metabolism of the body.

   No force, no matter of urgency or consequence; no account; hence, to do no force, to make no account of; not to heed. [Obs.]
   --Chaucer.

   Of force, of necessity; unavoidably; imperatively. ``Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.''
   --Shak.

   Plastic force (Physiol.), the force which presumably acts in the growth and repair of the tissues.

   Vital force (Physiol.), that force or power which is inherent in organization; that form of energy which is the cause of the vital phenomena of the body, as distinguished from the physical forces generally known.

   Syn: Strength; vigor; might; energy; stress; vehemence; violence; compulsion; coaction; constraint; coercion.

   Usage: Force, Strength. Strength looks rather to power as an inward capability or energy. Thus we speak of the strength of timber, bodily strength, mental strength, strength of emotion, etc. Force, on the other hand, looks more to the outward; as, the force of gravitation, force of circumstances, force of habit, etc. We do, indeed, speak of strength of will and force of will; but even here the former may lean toward the internal tenacity of purpose, and the latter toward the outward expression of it in action. But, though the two words do in a few cases touch thus closely on each other, there is, on the whole, a marked distinction in our use of force and strength. ``Force is the name given, in mechanical science, to whatever produces, or can produce, motion.''
   --Nichol.

   Thy tears are of no force to mollify This flinty man.
   --Heywood.

   More huge in strength than wise in works he was.
   --Spenser.

   Adam and first matron Eve Had ended now their orisons, and found Strength added from above, new hope to spring Out of despair.
   --Milton.

Centrifugal \Cen*trif"u*gal\, a. [L. centrum center + fugere to flee.]

1. Tending, or causing, to recede from the center.

2. (Bot.)

   1. Expanding first at the summit, and later at the base, as a flower cluster.

   2. Having the radicle turned toward the sides of the fruit, as some embryos.

      Centrifugal force (Mech.), a force whose direction is from a center.

      Note: When a body moves in a circle with uniform velocity, a force must act on the body to keep it in the circle without change of velocity. The direction of this force is towards the center of the circle. If this force is applied by means of a string to the body, the string will be in a state of tension. To a person holding the other end of the string, this tension will appear to be directed toward the body as if the body had a tendency to move away from the center of the circle which it is describing. Hence this latter force is often called centrifugal force. The force which really acts on the body being directed towards the center of the circle is called centripetal force, and in some popular treatises the centripetal and centrifugal forces are described as opposing and balancing each other. But they are merely the different aspects of the same stress.
      --Clerk Maxwell.

      Centrifugal impression (Physiol.), an impression (motor) sent from a nerve center outwards to a muscle or muscles by which motion is produced.

      Centrifugal machine, A machine for expelling water or other fluids from moist substances, or for separating liquids of different densities by centrifugal action; a whirling table.

      Centrifugal pump, a machine in which water or other fluid is lifted and discharged through a pipe by the energy imparted by a wheel or blades revolving in a fixed case. Some of the largest and most powerful pumps are of this kind.

n. 1 in everyday understanding, centrifugal force is the effect that tends to move an object away from the center of a circle it is rotating about (a consequence of inertia). 2 (context physics English): In a rotating reference frame, the apparent force that seems to push all bodies away from the centre of rotation of the frame and is a consequence of the body's mass and the frame's angular speed. It works in conjunction with the Coriolis force to give correct motion. 3 (context physics English): In circular motion, the 'reactive' centrifugal force is a real force applied ''by'' the accelerating body that is equal and opposite to the centripetal force that is acting ''on'' the accelerating body. 4 (context physics English): In polar coordinates, the apparent radial force that acts away from the center and is a consequence of the body's angular speed around the origin.

n. the outward force on a body moving in a curved path around another body [ant: centripetal force]

In Newtonian mechanics, the term centrifugal force is used to refer to an inertial force (also called a 'fictitious' force) directed away from the axis of rotation that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating reference frame.

The concept of centrifugal force can be applied in rotating devices such as centrifuges, centrifugal pumps, centrifugal governors, centrifugal clutches, etc., as well as in centrifugal railways, planetary orbits, banked curves, etc. when they are analyzed in a rotating coordinate system.

The name has historically sometimes also been used to refer to the reaction force to the centripetal force.