Question

if an object moving in a circular path in a horizontal circle leaves its path it will move __________ in the direction of its __________.

Answer 1

Body in Circular motion: The motion of a body in circular motion is responsible only because of some centripetal force that is acting radially inwards and keeps that body in the same circular path.

We know that speed is a scalar quantity while velocity is a vector quantity. Speed for a body in circular motion always remains constant because it is not associated with the direction and is only equal to (distance/ time), where distance is the circumference of circluar path in which it is moving while time is the period of revolution.

However, if we talk about the velocity, it is associated with the direction, and as the diagram shows, at each point on circular path,there is different direction, which corresponds to different velocity having same magnitude but different diection.

where these tangents basically represent the direction of veocities at different points namely VA, VB, VC,VD,VE,VF,VG,VH,VI,VJ,VK and VL represent

Now, if the body leaves this circular path at any instant, how would it move?

We already know that each point is associated with different direction.

The body, whenever it leaves the circular path, it always move tangentially i.e tangent to the point where it left the circular path( or in other words, we can say that body would move along the direction associated with the point from where it left). Also, this direction is basically the direction of velocity at that point(discussed above)

Hence we can conclude that,

If an object moving in circular path in a horizontal circle leaves its path, it would move tangentially  in the direction of its velocity