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Fictitious forces


A fictitious force (also called a pseudo force,d'Alembert force, or inertial force) is an apparent force that acts on all masses whose motion is described using a non-inertial frame of reference, such as a rotating reference frame.

The force F does not arise from any physical interaction between two objects, but rather from the acceleration a of the non-inertial reference frame itself. As stated by Iro:

Such an additional force due to nonuniform relative motion of two reference frames is called a pseudo-force.

Assuming Newton's second law in the form F = ma, fictitious forces are always proportional to the mass m.

A fictitious force on an object arises when the frame of reference used to describe the object's motion is accelerating compared to a non-accelerating frame. As a frame can accelerate in any arbitrary way, so can fictitious forces be as arbitrary (but only in direct response to the acceleration of the frame). However, four fictitious forces are defined for frames accelerated in commonly occurring ways: one caused by any relative acceleration of the origin in a straight line (rectilinear acceleration); two involving rotation: centrifugal force and Coriolis force; and a fourth, called the Euler force, caused by a variable rate of rotation, should that occur. Gravitational force would also be a fictitious force based upon a field model in which particles distort spacetime due to their mass.

The role of fictitious forces in Newtonian mechanics is described by Tonnelat:

For Newton, the appearance of acceleration always indicates the existence of absolute motion – absolute motion of matter where real forces are concerned; absolute motion of the reference system, where so-called fictitious forces, such as inertial forces or those of Coriolis, are concerned.

Fictitious forces arise in classical mechanics and special relativity in all non-inertial frames. Inertial frames are privileged over non-inertial frames because they do not have physics whose causes are outside of the system, while non-inertial frames do. Fictitious forces, or physics whose cause is outside of the system, are no longer necessary in general relativity, since these physics are explained with the geodesics of spacetime.


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