TransWikia.com

Effect of motion on ball in a moving cart

Physics Asked by Saniya on December 27, 2020

I know that in case of cart moving with an acceleration we are supposed to apply the concept of pseudo acceleration to judge the motion of ball in frame of the cart.


Now , consider the case where cart is moving with constant velocity. What will be the trajectory of the ball? Is there something called pseudo velocity?

situation

diagram of a pendulum hanging on a cart which is moving to the left

One Answer

I think your terminology is confusing you - the correct term is pseudo-force, not pseudo-acceleration.

Introducing a horizontal pseudo-force in the reference frame of an accelerating cart allows us to pretend that objects that are stationary in the reference frame of the cart are in equilibrium, even though we know they are really not.

If the cart is moving with constant velocity (i.e. zero acceleration) then objects that are stationary in the cart’s reference frame really are truly in equilibrium, so we do not need to introduce a pseudo-force.

Another way to look at this is to note that the pseudo-force on an object of mass $m$ will be $ma$ where $a$ is the cart’s acceleration. But if $a$ is zero then the pseudo-force is also zero.

Correct answer by gandalf61 on December 27, 2020

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP