A rigid horizontal turntable rotates about a fixed, frictionless vertical axis through its center. While the turntable is rotating with angular speed \(\omega\), a constant braking torque is applied, producing an angular acceleration \(\alpha\) that steadily brings the turntable to rest. A student hypothesizes that at some instant before the turntable stops, the deceleration will cancel the inward acceleration, causing the net linear acceleration of a point on the rim to become zero. However, an accelerometer mounted at a fixed distance \(r > 0\) from the axis measures a non-zero net linear acceleration at all times until rotation ceases. Which of the following statements provides the correct physical explanation for this observation?