"

 What is a ""scalar force""?  

At the start of the current article there appears a list of pointers to other article, and the last item on the list says ""For the scalar force that appears in polar coordinates, see the article on polar coordinates"". I checked the article on polar coordinates, and the word ""scalar"" doesn't appear there. So, what exactly IS a ""scalar force""? And why does the article point to another article for explanation of something that isn't even mentioned in the other article? Surely something is amiss.63.24.61.29  
Of course, you are correct in pointing out the absurdity of a ""scalar"" force. This pointer should be removed altogether, but I have only edited it to remove the absurdity. The history of this article shows that this pointer was a concession to a long, drawn out battle that apparently exhausted all parties and led to this compromise.   
Any single dimension is a scalar- a scalar is simply a single number. There's nothing absurd about a scalar force any more than there is about a scalar acceleration. What is 9.81 m/s^2?- () WolfKeeper (Talk) 

I don't understand the ""corrected"" version. The acceleration component that it refers to (i.e., the one that arises in stationary polar coordinates) is explicitly described and given the name ""centrifugal force"" in countless reputable references, including:

(1) ""An Introduction to the Coriolis Force"" By Henry M. Stommel, Dennis W. Moore, 1989 Columbia University Press. 
(2) ""Methods of Applied Mathematics"" By Francis B. Hildebrand, 1992, Dover, p 156.
(3) ""Statistical Mechanics"" By Donald Allan McQuarrie, 2000, University Science Books. 
(4) ""Essential Mathematical Methods for Physicists"" By Hans-Jurgen Weber, George Brown Arfken, Academic Press, 2004, p 843.

 This has been pointed out previously, with the relevant quotations. I don't think there can be any dispute of the fact that this particular acceleration term is indeed among the terms that are called (in contemporary reputable sources) centrifugal force. Needless to say, it's entirely a matter of convention as to what names we give certain terms appearing in certain equations, but since Wikipedia articles are supposed to reflect verifiable facts from reputable sources, I can't see any justification for excluding this particular fact from the article. I think any discussion of the contemporary (let alone the historical) concept of centrifugal force is incomplete if it doesn't include this. 

There are also other concepts that go under the name ""centrifugal force"" but that are not yet mentioned in this article. And conversely, there are lots of things discussed at length in this article that are only indirectly related to the concept of centrifugal force. I understand that much of this material has been added as part of a tutorial on general physics being given to placate some of the editors here, but ultimately I think it detracts from the readibility and relevance of the article. 

Overall I think the present article has evolved into a lengthy set of notes that various people have made as they clarified in their own minds certain aspects and implications of the centrifugal force, as they responded to challenges from certain other editors. Sort of learning on the job. That's a commendable exercise, but it doesn't make for a very coherent article, and frankly, the