Coriolis force | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

In physics, the Coriolis force is an inertial or fictitious force that acts on objects in motion within a frame of reference that rotates with respect to an inertial frame. In a reference frame with clockwise rotation, the force acts to the left of the motion of the object. In one with anticlockwise (or counterclockwise) rotation, the force acts to the right. Deflection of an object due to the Coriolis force is called the Coriolis effect. Though recognized previously by others, the mathematical expression for the Coriolis force appeared in an 1835 paper by French scientist Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, in connection with the theory of water wheels. Early in the 20th century, the term Coriolis force began to be used in connection with meteorology. Newton's laws of motion describe the motion of an object in an inertial (non-accelerating) frame of reference. When Newton's laws are transformed to a rotating frame of reference, the Coriolis and centrifugal accelerations appear. When applied to objects with masses, the respective forces are proportional to their masses. The magnitude of the Coriolis force is proportional to the rotation rate, and the magnitude of the centrifugal force is proportional to the square of the rotation rate. The Coriolis force acts in a direction perpendicular to two quantities: the angular velocity of the rotating frame relative to the inertial frame and the velocity of the body relative to the rotating frame, and its magnitude is proportional to the object's speed in the rotating frame (more precisely, to the component of its velocity that is perpendicular to the axis of rotation). The centrifugal force acts outwards in the radial direction and is proportional to the distance of the body from the axis of the rotating frame. These additional forces are termed inertial forces, fictitious forces, or pseudo forces. By introducing these fictitious forces to a rotating frame of reference, Newton's laws of motion can be applied to the rotating system as though it were an inertial system; these forces are correction factors that are not required in a non-rotating system.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (4)

Monitoring Mesoscale to Submesoscale Processes in Large Lakes with Sentinel-1 SAR Imagery: The Case of Lake Geneva

David Andrew Barry, Mehrshad Foroughan, Seyed Mahmood Hamze Ziabari, Ulrich Lemmin

As in oceans, large-scale coherent circulations such as gyres and eddies are ubiquitous features in large lakes that are subject to the Coriolis force. They play a crucial role in the horizontal and v

2022

A comparative study of earthquake source models in high- order accurate tsunami simulations

Jan Sickmann Hesthaven, Boris Bonev

The discontinuous Galerkin method is used to solve the non-linear spherical shallow water equations with Coriolis force. The numerical method is well-balanced and takes wetting/drying into account. Th

2019

Effects of Swirl Velocities From Fan Assemblies Mounted on Lifting Surfaces

Alexandros Terzis, Charilaos Kazakos, Nikolaos Papadopoulos

The penetration of a jet of fluid into a traversal moving stream is a basic configuration of a wide range of engineering applications, such as film cooling and V/STOL aircrafts. This investigation exa

2011

Related people (2)

Jan Sickmann Hesthaven, Ulrich Lemmin

Related concepts (104)

Related courses (60)

PHYS-101(g): General physics : mechanics

Le but du cours de physique générale est de donner à l'étudiant les notions de base nécessaires à la compréhension des phénomènes physiques. L'objectif est atteint lorsque l'étudiant est capable de pr

PHYS-101(a): General physics : mechanics

PHYS-101(f): General physics : mechanics

Related lectures (529)

Related MOOCs (1)

Physique générale

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being a water world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering 70.8% of Earth's surface. The remaining 29.2% of Earth's surface is land, most of which is located in the form of continental landmasses within one hemisphere, Earth's land hemisphere.

Centrifugal force

In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is parallel to the axis of rotation and passing through the coordinate system's origin. If the axis of rotation passes through the coordinate system's origin, the centrifugal force is directed radially outwards from that axis.

Coriolis force

Mechanics: Equilibrium and Forces Analysis

Covers the analysis of forces and equilibrium in mechanics, emphasizing the conservation of mechanical energy.

Euler Equations and Rotation Dynamics

Explores Euler equations, gyroscopic effects, and stability in rotating systems, focusing on the dynamics of rotation and gyroscopes.

Foucault Pendulum: Demonstrating Earth's Rotation

Explores the Foucault pendulum's demonstration of Earth's rotation and the forces in particle systems.