According to Mr Wiki, artificial gravity is the manipulation of gravity by artificial means, either increasing or decreasing. For example, making artificial gravity in spaceships is increasing the gravity felt by the astronauts while the free-falling of a plane creating weightlessness is a good example of decreasing gravity.
We'll just talk about increasing or making artificial gravity.
The idea is to rotate a ship as fast as possible creating high angular velocity. There will be a proportional force generated called the centripetal force (F), given by:
where the character that looks like 'w' (called omega) is the angular velocity. The centripetal force is the force acting on the joint attaching the outer ship (or ring) to the centre (or origin). The direction of this centripetal force is towards the origin of rotation. Subsequently, there exists an equal and opposite force called the centrifugal force, which acts on the body or outer ring. Since the direction of the force is opposite, the centrifugal force pulls the body outwards.
I will give an example to ease the understanding. Imagine you are playing with hammer throw.
The centripetal force acts on the metal chain attached to the heavy hammer at the end of the chain, towards you. On the other hand, the centrifugal force acts on the hammer at the end of the chain, away from you.
Returning to our space station example:
The astronauts will be located at the outer ring of the space station. When the space station rotates, the resultant centrifugal force will pull the astronauts away from the centre of the ring, causing an artificial gravity outwards.
Hence, to create more artificial gravity, you need to spin faster and at the same time, have a large radius. This will create a large centripetal force, which results in large centrifugal force.
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