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A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to evenly distribute substances (usually present in a solution for small scale applications) of greater and lesser density. There are many different kinds of centrifuges, including those for very specialised purposes. It can be used for viable counts, when shaking the culture e.g. yeast, out of suspension. Protocols for centrifugation typically specify the amount of acceleration to be applied to the sample, rather than specifying a rotational speed such as revolutions per minute. The acceleration is often quoted in multiples of g, the standard acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface. This distinction is important because two rotors with different diameters running at the same rotational speed will subject samples to different accelerations. The acceleration can be calculated as the product of the radius and the square of the angular velocity. English military engineer Benjamin Robins (1707-1751) invented a whirling arm apparatus to determine drag. In 1864, Antonin Prandtl invented the first dairy centrifuge in order to separate cream from milk. And in 1879, Gustaf de Laval demonstrated the first continuous centrifugal separator, making its commercial application feasible.
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