Question

Ramon and Sally are observing a toy car speed up as it goes around a circular track. Ramon says, “The car’s speeding up, so there must be a net force parallel to the track.” “I don’t think so,” replies Sally. “It’s moving in a circle, and that requires centripetal acceleration. The net force has to point to the center of the circle.” Do you agree with Ramon, Sally, or neither

Answer 1

Neither

Step-by-step explanation:

In this situation, the net force acting on the toy car moving in the circle has two components:

- There is a component which is tangential (parallel) to the circle - we can understand this by the fact that the car is speeding up: this means that its tangential speed is changing, so it has a tangential acceleration, therefore there must be a component of the force tangential to the circle (parallel to the circle)

- There is a component which is radial to the circle, pointing towards the centre - this is called centripetal force. This is due to the fact that the car is constantly changing direction of motion: so, there must be a force that causes this change in direction of the car, and this force points towards the centre of the circle, and it is called centripetal force.