Uniform Circular Motion

Summary

Uniform circular motion describes an object rotating around a circle with constant linear speed.

Read Time

⏱ 1 min

Definition

Uniform circular motion is an object rotating at with constant linear speed. An object in uniform circular motion will also have constant angular speed. The rotation around a circle is caused by the centripetal force and centripetal acceleration, which are always perpendicular to linear velocity vector.

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Explanation

Example of uniform circular acceleration.
Linear velocity is perpendicular to the centripetal force


  1. Taken from https://tikz.net/dynamics_circle/ by Izaak Neutelings (October 2020) ↩︎