Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How does doubling the mass of a rotating sample change the centrifugal force on it?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
centrifuge
Figure 1: Tubular centrifuge
Doubling the mass of a rotating sample increases the centrifugal force acting on it by a factor of 2.
This is because the centrifugal force is directly proportional to the mass of the object being rotated. In the context of a centrifuge, the force () is expressed by the relation , where represents mass, represents speed, and represents the radius of the circular path. Because mass appears as a linear factor in this equation, any change in mass results in a proportional change in the total force exerted.12