Question

What is the relation between linear acceleration and angular acceleration?

Answer 1

The relationship between linear acceleration ($\overrightarrow{a}$) and angular acceleration ($\overrightarrow{\alpha }$) is given by $\overrightarrow{a}=\overrightarrow{\alpha }\times \overrightarrow{r}$.

The higher the magnitude of angular acceleration is, the higher the magnitude of linear acceleration will be.

For example, greater angular acceleration of the car’s wheels implies greater acceleration of the car. Also, for a particular value of angular acceleration, the smaller the wheels of the car is, the smaller will be its linear acceleration.