what is centrifugal force?

Answer 1

Centrifugal Force is the force which appears to act on an object moving in a circular path.

Answer 2

It is an illusion. The centrifugal effect is the result of linear momentum and centripetal acceleration.
There really is no such thing as "centrifugal force" which means "center fleeing" force.
What is actually happening when you swing a ball on a string is that the ball (or water in a bucket) wants to go in a straight line per Newton's law of motion. But the string pulls it towards the center. The string (or in the case of water in a bucket, the bucket) changes the direction of the ball or water from the straight line into a circular path. The acceleration is always towards the center, hence centripetal acceleration.
When you go around a curve very fast, you feel as if you are being thrown against the side of the car, but what is really happening is that the side of the car is pushing you towards the center of the turn.

Answer 3

Visualize a bucket half full of water on a rope and swing it in the horizontal plane the water stays on the bottom of the bucket because it is held there by centrifugal force. This force is a vector perpendicular to the tangent to the arc of the bucket and is caused by the rope altering the momentum vector of the bucket to keep it moving in a circle. If you actually do this you will feel the force as a pull on the rope.

Answer 4

It's the force caused by circular motion.

Think of the "SpinOut" type rides at the carnival that suck your body up against the wall of the cylinder.

Answer 5

i dont know how to explain it.. but its when you use this spinning machine thing to separate precipitations...so the solid gets forced to the bottom of the tube and the liquid floats at the top

Answer 6

I'll refer you to wikipedia for this type of questions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force

this is by far the best explanation you can get.