Cyclone on a Turntable: Illustrations of the Coriolis Force

Abstract

The description of motion in a noninertial reference frame, and especially the Coriolis force, is a topic that often comes up even when it is not in the curriculum. Sometimes students may have seen a Foucault pendulum at a museum or they may have heard a discussion about the draining of bathtubs. At those times it would be nice to be able to give a simple and clear demonstration in the next lesson. At a more advanced level, the description of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force is a nice illustration of the use of vector algebra.