Central force
Mechanical force towards or away from a point / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about a mechanical force. For the military unit, see Central Force.
In classical mechanics, a central force on an object is a force that is directed towards or away from a point called center of force.[lower-alpha 1][1]: 93
where
is the force, F is a vector valued force function, F is a scalar valued force function, r is the position vector, ||r|| is its length, and
is the corresponding unit vector.
Not all central force fields are conservative or spherically symmetric. However, a central force is conservative if and only if it is spherically symmetric or rotationally invariant.[1]: 133–38