0
$\begingroup$

I would like to know if a rotating body resists acceleration in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction of the rotation of the body.

Say for example there is a bicycle wheel with a tire on it (as shown in the photo below) and it is attached to an electric motor, and say that this electric motor and wheel combination is attached to the front bumper of a go-cart. Say that you want to accelerate this go-cart up to a velocity of 100 fps, in the direction shown by the arrow in the photo, and you want this go-cart to reach this velocity in ten seconds.

If you were to take wind resistance out of the equation, say that it takes X amount of horsepower to accelerate this go-cart up to this velocity in ten seconds when the electric motor is off and not rotating the wheel. When the electric motor is turned on and is rotating the wheel though, say at 500 RPM, I am curious to know if this will result in the go-cart having to use more horsepower in order to accelerate up to 100 fps in ten seconds.

Does a rotating body resist acceleration in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction of the rotation of the body?

enter image description here

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ The only "additional resistance" to acceleration would be caused by the miniscule increase in mass due to the higher internal energy of the rotating wheel compared to the resting wheel. This is a relativistic effect. What "wheel experiments" are actually trying to demonstrate is the counterintuitive response of a system with non-zero angular momentum to an external torque. $\endgroup$
    – FlatterMann
    Commented May 24, 2023 at 19:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1
$\begingroup$

It will “resist” acceleration according to $\vec F_{net}=m\vec a$. There is no additional resistance classically.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.