This summer, my family and I went to California (same trip as the rope swing picture) and when my parents were done paddling we visited some colleges. These two pictures are of the campus as UC Davis. On the right, you can see that there are tons of bikes on campus and this picture was taken in the summer so classes weren't even in session, so during the regular year there would be even more. The picture on the right is a walkway/bike path that winds through campus and you can see that the path is banked as it curves down the hill. Banked curves allow for greater speeds, because on a banked curve centripetal force is made up of a combination of normal force and the x-direction component of friction. On level ground, centripetal force just comes from normal force, so on a banked curve, there is more centripetal force than on level ground. This added centripetal force allows bikers to travel at greater speeds without losing grip and flying off tangent to the curve. This banked path is especially important on a college campus because there are tons of bikers, all of whom are in a hurry and probably hyped up on caffeine :)
2 comments:
very competent explanation of the role of the normal force... but where was the water? :-P
in the right hand corner of the second picture there is a lake-ish body of water, it kind of looks like grass because it is green but it is actually water :)
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