PHYS 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Angular Velocity, Angular Acceleration, Radian

• School: McGill University
• Department: Physics
• Course: PHYS 101
• Professor: Kenneth Ragan

Document Summary

When a rigid object rotates about a fixed axis, each point of the object moves in a circular path. Line drawn perpendicular from the rotation axis to various points in the object all sweep out the same angle in any given time interval. Angles are conveniently measured in radians, where one radian is the angle subtended by an arc whose length is equal to the radius, or: (cid:884) rad=(cid:885)(cid:888)(cid:882) (cid:883) rad=(cid:887)(cid:889). (cid:885) . Angular velocity, , is defined as the rate of change of angular position: All parts of a rigid object rotating about a fixed axis have the same angular velocity at any instant. Angular acceleration, , is defined as the rate of change of angular velocity: acceleration, respectively. The linear velocity and acceleration of a point fixed at a distance from the axis of rotation are related to and by: tan = Where tan and are the tangential and radial (centripetal) components of the linear.