Fictitious Forces On Earth
See also: centrifugal force, Coriolis force, and Euler forceThe surface of the Earth is a rotating reference frame. To solve classical mechanics problems exactly in an Earth-bound reference frame, three fictitious forces must be introduced, the Coriolis force, the centrifugal force (described below) and the Euler force. The Euler force is typically ignored because the variations in the angular velocity of the rotating Earth are insignificant. Both of the other fictitious forces are weak compared to most typical forces in everyday life, but they can be detected under careful conditions. For example, Léon Foucault was able to show the Coriolis force that results from the Earth's rotation using the Foucault pendulum. If the Earth were to rotate a thousand times faster (making each day only ~86 seconds long), people could easily get the impression that such fictitious forces are pulling on them, as on a spinning carousel.
Read more about this topic: Fictitious Force
Famous quotes containing the words fictitious, forces and/or earth:
“It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour, and fictitious benevolence.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“In literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, bookmakers, editors, university deans and professors, bishops, too, were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Indifferent hacks and mediocrities tower, by pushing their forces to a lucrative point, or by working power, over multitudes of superior men, in Old as in New England.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)