A carnival ferris wheel completes five turns about its horizontal axis every minute. What is the acceleration of a passenger at his/ her lowest point on the ride?

I understand that 1/f= T which is how you find the period and that minutes must be converted to sec, but I'm getting really strange answers for the centrip. acceleration. Is the question asking for the linear acceleration or both? Any help would be really appreciated!

we assume that the speed is constant so there is no linear acceleration, only centripetal.

We HAVE to know the radius.

T = 60 sec /5 turns = 12 seconds/turn

v = 2 pi r/T
and
Ac = v^2/r

To find the acceleration of a passenger at their lowest point on the carnival ferris wheel, we can use the formula for centripetal acceleration.

Centripetal acceleration is given by the formula a = (v^2) / r, where v is the linear velocity of the passenger and r is the radius of the ferris wheel.

To find the linear velocity, we first need to find the time it takes for the ferris wheel to complete one full turn, also known as its period. In this case, the ferris wheel completes five turns every minute.

To convert minutes to seconds, we multiply by 60. So, the period T is given by T = 1 / (5 turns/minute) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) = 1 / (5/60) = 12 seconds.

Once we have the period T, we can find the angular velocity (ω) of the ferris wheel using the formula ω = 2π / T. Since the ferris wheel makes a full revolution with 2π radians, the angular velocity is ω = 2π / 12 = π/6 rad/s.

Next, we need to find the linear velocity v. The linear velocity of an object moving in a circle depends on the angular velocity and the radius of the circle. In this case, the radius is not given, so we assume it to be a constant value.

Now, the linear velocity v can be calculated using the formula v = ω * r.

Finally, once we have the linear velocity, we can find the centripetal acceleration using the formula a = (v^2) / r.

Please note that the centripetal acceleration represents the acceleration experienced by the passenger as a result of the circular motion, and it does not account for any other linear accelerations that may occur during the ride.

If you provide the radius of the ferris wheel, I can help you calculate the exact value of the centripetal acceleration at the lowest point.