Question

A girl on a spinning amusements park is 12m from the center of the ride and has a centripetal acceleration of 17 m/s^2. What is the girl's tangential speed?

Answer 1

Answer: 14.28 m/s

Step-by-step explanation:

Assuming the girl is spinning with uniform circular motion, her centripetal acceleration
`a_(c)` is given by the following equation:

`a_(c)=(V^(2))/(r)` (1)

Where:

`a_(c)=17 m/s^(2)` is the centripetal acceleration

`V` is the tangential speed

`r=12 m` is the radius of the circle

Isolating
`V` from (1):

`V=\sqrt{a_(c)r}` (2)

`V=\sqrt{(17 m/s^(2))(12 m)}`

Finally:

`V=14.28 m/s` This is the girl's tangential speed