Home › WAEC WASSCE › Physics › Uniform Circular Motion and Gravitation › A passenger feels thrown sideways as a car turns…
A passenger feels thrown sideways as a car turns. How is that feeling described?
AA real force acting outward on them
BA change in the passenger's own mass
CA fictitious force from the frame
DA gravitational pull from the road
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. A fictitious force from the frame
1. The passenger tends to continue in a straight line, as Newton's first law requires.
2. The car turns out from under them, so relative to the car they appear to slide sideways.
3. No real outward force acts, so the apparent push is called a fictitious force.
4. It arises only because the observer's frame of reference is itself accelerating or rotating.
_Source: OpenStax College Physics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 6 "Uniform Circular Motion and Gravitation", section 6.4 Fictitious Forces and Non-inertial Frames: The Coriolis Force_
Related questions
The Moon stays in orbit around the Earth. Which force provides its centripetal force?Why does a centripetal force change a body's direction but never its speed?A stone is whirled on a string in a horizontal circle. What supplies the centripetal forceUnder what condition does an ellipse become a circle?Kepler's third law relates the squares of the periods to which quantity?What does the line from the Sun to a planet sweep out in equal times?What shape does each planet's orbit about the Sun take, and where does the Sun sit?Besides muscle wasting, what else do astronauts lose in microgravity?