Problem

You have seen dogs shake to shed water from their fur. The motion is complicated, but th...

You have seen dogs shake to shed water from their fur. The motion is complicated, but the fur on a dog’s torso rotates back and forth along a roughly circular arc. Water droplets are held to the fur by contact forces, and these forces provide the centripetal acceleration that keeps the droplets moving in a circle, still attached to the fur, if the dog shakes gently. But these contact forces—like static friction—have a maximum possible value. As the dog shakes more vigorously, the contact forces cannot provide sufficient centripetal acceleration and the droplets fly off. A big dog has a torso that is approximately circular, with a radius of 16 cm. At the midpoint of a shake, the dog’s fur is moving at a remarkable 2.5 m/s.

a. What force is required to keep a 10 mg water droplet moving in this circular arc?

b. What is the ratio of this force to the weight of a droplet?

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