10 Science Principles You See in Action Every Day

# 6

Coriolis Effect:

you can observe the Coriolis effect in action.

 Although the Coriolis effect has a negligible impact on baseballs, it can affect the trajectory of very fast long-range projectiles like missiles and speeding bullets. During World War I, the Germans had to compensate for the Earth's movement as they fired shells at Paris with an extremely heavy howitzer that they called Big Bertha. If they hadn't taken the Coriolis effect into account, their shells, which were fired from 70 miles (112.6 km) away, would have gone astray by nearly a mile (1.6 km) [source: Veh].

So, while the Coriolis force might be called imaginary by some, its effects can be quite real. Just do everyone a favor and try not to leave your toilet unflushed for three weeks to prove that point.

How is it possible for wind to flow in curved trajectories, or even counterclockwise? The scientific explanation traces back to a mathematical equation known as the Coriolis force, and as you might imagine, it's a bit more complicated than 1+1=2. First discovered in 1835 by French scientist Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis, it demonstrates that objects moving within a rotating coordinate system do not actually deviate from their path, but simply appear to do so because of the motion of the coordinate [source: USA Today].

As air begins to flow from high to low pressure, the Earth rotates under it, serving as the object or rotating frame of reference. However, motions over its surface such as wind are subject to acceleration. At the equator, the Coriolis force is zero, but in the Northern Hemisphere, wind turns to the right of its direction of motion, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it turns to the left, making the Coriolis force one to be reckoned with when it comes to studying storms and oceanic currents.

The Coriolis force has nothing to do with making toilets rotate one way in the Northern Hemisphere and the other way in the Southern Hemisphere. It's noticeable only on large forces such as winds.

 So we can say;

coriolis force: An effect whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force (the Coriolis force ) acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. On the earth, the effect tends to deflect moving objects to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern and is important in the formation of cyclonic weather systems.