Acceleration in circular motion

The acceleration in circular motion is centripetal, i.e. directed toward the center of the trajectory.

Move either point A or B such that they are close to each other.

and

are the velocities of the point, respectively, in A and B.

is equal to

, but is drawn such that it starts from A, so we can compute graphically the difference

is always perpendicular to the base of an isosceles triangle formed by

and

. The height of such a triangle is parallel to the displacement x(B)-x(A). The vector a is compute as

: when

goes to zero, the time interval dt goes to zero, too, being

.When A and B coincide, the acceleration, whose length is constant, points toward the center of the trajectory.

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