This is a re-post of an article I wrote in reply to JimSmithInChiapas. He has been kind enough to respond to some of my ideas on gravity, centrifugal and centripetal force. Though he does not agree with my assessment of these forces, we continue to communicate in a respectful manner. Below is a recent reply to a comment he had on centripetal forces. Ultimately, I feel that the centripetal force has been fundamentally misapplied in spinning frames of reference. It is my contention that a single frame of reference for spinning body requires that for any object to be apart of that frame, it must be attached directly to that spinning body. This has massive (no pun intended) implications. You can read my argument below:
Jim…thank you for your reply. I initially wanted to clarify a slight misrepresentation in your article. My article is called “Does Gravity Make Sense?” not “does gravity exist?”. They are different concepts. I’m questioning how gravity is being represented by mainstream science today not that objects have mass or that they fall from the sky.
In any event, the example that I used provided a single frame of reference with respect to a spinning disk. I used a disk with a 10m radius that spins at 10 m/s with a person of 72kg on the outer rim. The person would experience 720N/kg of centrifugal force. I don’t think that is in question. I then go onto saying that unless the person holds onto the disk (via an attached handle of some kind), they would be flung from the disk at 720N/kg. Again, I don’t think that is in question either. The centripetal force is an inward force that requires the handle and the person to be attached to the disk at all times.
A more illustrative example would be the Olympic hammer throw. The athlete is holding onto a tether which is attached to heavy weight. The spinning motion of the athlete creates the centrifugal force which flings the weight outwards. The strength of the athlete keeps the hammer from leaving a circular orbit via a centripetal force. The inward force (centripetal) is provided by the athlete which is ‘balance’ by the centrifugal force. But all the spinning objects in that frame of reference are and must be attached together.
There is no empirical evidence of a centripetal force acting on a body that is not attached to the spinning body. How could it?
There are no real world examples of a free floating object being acted on by a centripetal force. You can mathematically present a centripetal force acting on an object but it is missing the real world necessity of being attached to or apart of the spinning object. The centripetal force is a function of a spinning object; it is not a separate force that can be applied to an object outside that frame of reference. To be part of that frame of reference, an object would, by necessity, need to be attached to the spinning object.
For example, the person in the disk example above, is not part of the frame of reference unless they hold onto the disk with sufficient force. They are literally removed from the frame via the centrifugal force.
Therefore, I would conclude that any object that is rotating around the earth must, by necessity, be attached to the earth to be part of that frame of reference for any object not attached is subject to the centrifugal force and will be removed from the frame.
If we take a real world example of a person of 72kg standing on the surface of the earth and if they are standing at the equator and if the earth is spinning at 1000miles/hr then they are subject to a centrifugal force of 2.2N/kg. If gravity is acting on the person with 9.8N/kg then a total force of 7.6N/kg is present. The centripetal force is not part of the frame of reference for that person as shown above.
As the mass of the object increases, the centrifugal force increases. Therefore, an object greater than ~330kg should become “weightless” on the surface of the earth. This is obviously not happening nor are people 22% lighter at the equator than they are at the north pole. Additionally, the person would not feel heavier if they grabbed hold of something attached to the earth.
What I’m showing is that there is a discrepancy between real world situations and the mathematical examples presented by modern science. At this juncture I can only conclude that the centripetal force is being improperly applied across multiple spinning frames of reference to account for the discrepancy and if that is the case then we cannot be in a spinning frame of reference (as shown above).
Terra Firma 