subject: Significance of Coriolis Effect As Seen In Simple Parlance [print this page] Significance of Coriolis Effect As Seen In Simple Parlance
In simple language you can explain Coriolis effect as one caused because of the inertia of its position. One scientist Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis explained it in detail and hence it is named after him. He said that the bodies moving in a circular motion or rotating bodies like the planets do not obey the Newtonian laws of motion strictly and an inertial force should be added to the equations derived for the motion of the objects. So according to him an inertial force that acts on such bodies is called the Coriolis effect.
Actually though the object does not deviate from the path it appears to do so when it is in a rotating motion. This can be exemplified by an object that moves on the earth along the longitudinal line or the north south direction. It is seen that an apparent deflection to the right of the Northern Hemisphere is seen whereas in the Southern Hemisphere it is seen in the left.
The effect of the Coriolis force is an apparent deflection of the path of an object that moves within a rotating coordinate system. The object does not actually deviate from its path, but it appears to do so because of the motion of the coordinate system. This can be explained by giving some reasons for the same. The rotation of the earth is toward the east. Another one is that the velocity at the tangent at any point depends on its latitude.
In stellar dynamics and astrophysics it has a very great significance. We can see this in the direction of the rotation of the sunspots. The prominent place where it figures is the atmospheric dynamics. The rotation of storms and the prevailing winds are seen to be affected. Even in the rotation of the ocean currents this effect is noticed.
For a layman this explanation may not seem to make any sense. To explain the effect explained above you can take a simple example of a butterfly and a ball. The butterfly sights a small piece of pollen on the ball. It tries to fly to catch hold of it. When doing so it will of course move in a straight path and the condition is the ball is stationary.
But consider the case of the ball rotating on its axis. Then when the butterfly sights the pollen it would be in one position but by the time it reaches it the ball would have reached another position and the butterfly would have to reach that point to take the pollen. As the ball is in rotational motion you would notice that the path the butterfly covered is a curved path but in actual it has traversed only a straight path. This apparent change seen is called the Coriolis effect.
