Circular Motion

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Objects in circular motion move with a linear speed that is proportional to their distance from the center.

We can write this as

v = r

where v is the linear speed of an object moving in a circle,

r is its distance from the center -- the radius of the circle it is moving in,

and is the angular speed.

is the lower case Greek letter omega.

This means that carousel horses closer to the edge (or farther from the center) travel faster than horses closer to the center.

Projectile Motion Illustrations

Summary

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(C) 2003, Doug Davis; all rights reserved