Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Circular Motion and Gravitation

I learned a couple of things about circular motion and gravitation. I learned that when an object moves in a vertical circle at the end of a string its tension in the string will vary with its position. The centripetal force on an object at any point is the vector sum of FT and the component of the object's weight toward the center of the circle. I learned that gravitation is a force that varies with the square of the distance between to objects and that every object attracts every other object.


I didn't find too many things hard. I mainly had problems figuring out how to draw the FBD for the circular motion problems, and I still struggle a little bit with problems using trigonometry.

I have gotten better at remembering formulas, but I’m still not too good at good at FBDs. Some problems are worded a little odd, and that sometimes confuses me.

2 comments:

  1. You mean there is always a tension involved in circular motion? What do you mean by a component of the weight towards the center of a circle? What is that and how is it relevant to circular motion?

    Also, please be careful with your spelling:
    centripetal not centripitle
    trigonometry not triginamotry

    You need to do a much better job with the reflection in order to get a grade. I suggest that you check the Reflection Rubric.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll fix the errors and work on explaining more.

    ReplyDelete