Forces Introduced in Accelerated Frames

One of the basic axioms of the special theory of relativity is that the laws of physics are the same in all unaccelerated frames of reference. That axiom, along with the constancy of the speed of light, lead to the results of the previous two blog entries in this collection. In this entry, we will look at some accelerated frames, especially rotating frames, to see that Newton's second law must be modified to account for the acceleration of one frame with respect to another. This modification is the introduction of apparent (or so called "fictitious" forces) that are a direct result of the accelerating frame. In the paper, Forces Introduced in Accelerated Frames we look at the forces introduced in rotating frames.