Talk:Central force

Latest comment: 13 years ago by Norbeck in topic Central forces do not exist in nature.

Untitled edit

a bit confusin indeed, one should distinguish between the force itself and the potential field, furthermore the point, the force is acting to or from, is not in every case the origin, this is just a special case.

According to Classical Mechanics by Goldstein, page 7, a central force is one where the direction of the force lies along the radius vector. Similarly, page 88 in Theoretical Physics by Georg Joos says that a central force is one whose representative vector always points towards a fixed point O. This does not mean that the magnitude of a central force is a function of the magnitude of it's position vector r.

80.43.112.158 22:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC) physics dudeReply

Removed the external link Central Forces & Orbits Oxford University Physics Dept. This requires permission to access the page. Zeyn1 (talk) 14:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Central forces do not exist in nature. edit

The central force problem is a simplifying approximation to the two body problem.

Central forces are non-physical, they violate the law of conservation of momentum.

Gravity and Electrostatic forces are is not examples of a central force. The gravitational force depends on the distance between the objects, not the distance of the objects to the barycenter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Norbeck (talkcontribs) 05:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Assessment comment edit

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Central force/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

According to Classical Mechanics by Goldstein, page 7, a central force is one where the direction of the force lies along the radius vector. Similarly, page 88 in Theoretical Physics by Georg Joos says that a central force is one whose representative vector always points towards a fixed point O. This does not mean that a central force has a magnitude that depends only on the magnitude of it's position vector r. 80.43.112.158 22:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Last edited at 01:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 11:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)