Thanks very much - I think you are nailing it exactly. My physics instructor just blatantly said, "Centrifugal force - it's fiction. Doesn't exist. Centripet

Thanks very much - I think you are nailing it exactly. My physics instructor just blatantly said, "Centrifugal force - it's fiction. Doesn't exist. Centripetal acceleration does exist." He pretty much left it at that, so I tended to ignore everything else he said for the next couple years that didn't make sense to me, thought he didn't know what he was talking about. I've probably learned more about the topic from this HN thread than I ever did in grade 11 physics.