Centrifugal force

Also called Fictitious outward force

Centrifugal force is the apparent outward force that something moving in a circle seems to feel. It is not a real force and never belongs on a free-body diagram, because no object exerts it; the net force in circular motion points inward, toward the center.

It does not go on a free-body diagram. That is the exam-relevant point, and it is worth more than everything else on this page. A free-body diagram shows forces exerted on an object by other objects, and nothing pushes a passenger outward in a turning car. Draw the outward arrow and the question is already lost.

The 2024 AP Physics 1 Course and Exam Description does not use the word centrifugal anywhere. It describes circular motion entirely through centripetal acceleration and the real forces that cause it: EK 2.9.A.2 says centripetal acceleration can result from a single force, more than one force, or components of forces, with friction, the normal force and tension the usual candidates.

What you actually feel. Your body keeps moving in a straight line, as Newton's first law says it will, while the car turns underneath you. You slide toward the door until the door pushes you inward, and that inward push is the real force. The outward sensation is your own inertia, felt from inside a frame that is itself accelerating.

Physicists do use the term, as a bookkeeping device inside a rotating reference frame where Newton's second law in its ordinary form does not apply. AP Physics 1 works in inertial frames throughout, so the device is neither needed nor tested.

For the real analysis see centripetal force, and for the discipline that keeps invented forces off the page, how to draw a free-body diagram.

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