A number of weeks ago i was driving through the snow(yes I am very far behind on my blogs, I know), when i was coming to a turn. Not only was this turn covered and i nice fresh blanket of snow, but i was also going down an incline. However, as i was nearing the turn, i ever so lightly tapped the brakes, sending me on a tangent straight for an unsuspecting mailbox. White-knuckling the steering wheel and exclaiming a number of shocked obscenities, I was able to escape certain death by mere inches. After catching my breath and scanning the area to see if anyone saw, i went quickly (but not too quickly) on my way. However this experience got me thinking about circular motion and centripetal force. As i was rounding the turn, the initial force on my car was felt inward towards the center of the curve. However, since my velocity was higher than the max velocity allowable in said situation(Vmax=(ugr)^1/2), my tires left the safety of the road and instead decided to go skiing. Since in circular motion, the velocity vector is always tangent to the curve, which is where the mailbox was so conveniently placed, I started heading right for it. Luckily hitting the breaks 50 more times and turning the steering wheel to its breaking point was enough to save me. I'm just glad there are things such as inertia and other types of friction that were able to slow me down and keep my from lowering that families property value, or Christmas would not have been so merry.

As always,

[not]TheBrightestBulb