Centripetal Acceleration; It's NOT a vibrator.

DANGER:
I WARN YOU RIGHT NOW. Turn OFF your sound before proceeding in this blog. PLEASE, I beg you.




Though it gets a lot of abuse from me in the mornings, my alarm clock is what saves me from absolute tardiness each and every day. I don't know where I would be without it!

Interestingly enough, my alarm clock is one of the ones with a second hand that experiences uniform circular motion. I measured the length of the second hand (the radius of the circle) to be 2.43 cm, or 0.0243m.

The period of a clock is of course, 60 seconds.

Therefore, the velocity of the second hand would be [2pi(0.0243)]/60 or 2.54e^-3 m/s.

Knowing velocity, centripetal acceleration can be calculated as velocity^2/r

(0.00254 m/s)^2/0.0243m

centripetal acceleration = 2.65e^-6 m/s^2.

Not quite what you're used to seeing from textbook problems (and not quite what you're probably used to HEARING, either) ; such small numbers! but cool, nonetheless, right?? especially the purple light???





hao,
I hate you so much.

love,
Andrew