Coriolis force

(kor-ee-oh -liss, ko-ree-) A concept introduced to simplify calculations on the motion of bodies observed from a rotating frame of reference, such as the Earth. The effect of the Coriolis force is to deflect the object in a direction perpendicular to its course.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

Coriolis force

[kȯr·ē′ō·ləs ‚fȯrs]

(mechanics)

A velocity-dependent pseudoforce in a reference frame which is rotating with respect to an inertial reference frame; it is equal and opposite to the product of the mass of the particle on which the force acts and its Coriolis acceleration.

Coriolis force

In the Northern Hemisphere the Coriolis force deflects the winds toward right.

An apparent force experienced by a body moving relative to the rotating earth. The wind blowing from the poles toward the equator turns to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere because of this Coriolis force, or Coriolis effect. Strictly, Coriolis force is a force that acts on a particle while it is moving along a path in a rotating plane.. Named after Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis (1792–1843).

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Coriolis Force

(named after the French scientist G. Coriolis), one of the inertia forces introduced to account for the effect of a rotating frame of reference on the relative motion of a material point. The Coriolis force is equal to the product of the mass of the point by its Coriolis acceleration and is directed opposite to this acceleration.

The effect accounted for by the Coriolis force is such that in a rotating frame of reference a point moving not parallel to the axis of this rotation either is deflected in the direction perpendicular to its relative velocity or exerts pressure on the body obstructing such motion. On the earth, this effect is governed by the planet’s rotation and consists in the fact that a free-falling body is deflected from the vertical to the east (to the first approximation), while bodies moving along the earth’s surface in the direction of the meridian are deflected from their direction of motion to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. These deflections are extremely small owing to the slow rotation of the earth and are noticeable only at great velocities of motion (as in the case of rockets or long-range artillery shells) or when the motion is of great duration (for example, the erosion of the corresponding river banks [seeBAER’S LAW] or the formation of certain air and sea currents).

In engineering, Coriolis forces are taken into account in the theory of gyroscopes and turbines.

S. M. TARG

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But to Fishmael, "His dream never dies, and this is the true source of his beauty"; "his dream of Atlantis has been the Coriolis force of his life." [The Coriolis effect--identified by French engineer-mathematician Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis in 1835--involves the earth rotating out from under storms or currents moving north or south from the equator, causing them to turn east in the northern hemisphere and west in the southern.

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