Coriolis Effect--Science or Superstition?

[cnewtongifford]

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[cnewtongifford]

To: Boerseum in reply to yours of yesterday:
Sorry to be so slow responding. No disrespect intended. Too much going on. Limited time to work on Coriolis.
The perception is worldwide that real-life demonstrations of the Coriolis Effect are all around us. "Everybody knows" that Coriolis is a home truth.
From their first Physics or geography or meteorology class, they have KNOWN that Coriolis is REAL.
So your invitation to discuss specific "evidence" is most refreshing. I am floored by your objectivity! Take another bow! You would be surprised to see how adamantly & uniformy the cadre of Physics professors refuse to even consider the merits of their beliefs. To them, my challenging Coriolis is heresy, blasphemy, or worse, worthy only of Snorts of derision! So, Thanks for listening!
Here are some random thoughts as to the various Coriolis "evidences":
First, several are simply fictional (hypothetical)--unsupported claims. In this category I put everything Coriolis originally put forth himself. Remember: he didn't claim to have any empirical evidence. He just said that we could expect long range N/S artillery shots to deflect; for western banks of N/S rivers to be scoured more vigorously than their eastern ones; for long-distance N/S sea voyages to require correction to offset rotation-based deflection. I include in this category even much later additions, such as the claim that geographic latitude (and its corresponding 'space speed') is part of the ballistics of launching rockets into space. I have searched everywhere I could, and have found this to actually be just a collection of naked claims. In an apparent attempt to sound scientific, these "ghosts" are usually presented with qualifiers liberally sprinkled around (one would expect, we may predict, there appears to be evidence, it is commonly observed, etc).
The other category involves actual phenomena--and how we interpret them. Most prominent: on a daily basis we do see that the clockwise / counter-clockwise spin of tornados and hurricanes is scientifically predictable based on the hemisphere involved, which is accepted & used as evidence of the Coriolis Effect at work. It makes all the difference whether or not you approach these weather events as a card-carrying believer in Coriolis. I came to them as a skeptic, but willing to learn. I researched, wrestled, wrangled, questioned, and thought about weather. Space is an absence of both matter and heat. The temperatures at Earth's N/S poles are nearer the ambient temperature of space than those nearer the equator. Those temperature differences are directly attributable to energy which radiates out from the Sun. The effect is analogous to a big blow torch in the sky, pointed toward our equator, always running westward, always proceding at a pace of 360 degrees per day. This causes a major constant disturbance in Earth's atmosphere. I compare it to a big truck roaring down the highway. That truck has a major effect on the local atmosphere (creates strong, wild and crazy and partly predictable wind gusts). Anything which alters the ambient temperature of a given local patch of atmosphere disturbs the local peace (pressure), causing wind, cold fronts, highs, lows, hurricanes, etc. You have a naturally cold sphere. You introduce a material temperature disturbance aimed at the equator ( & the intensity of the disturbance is latitude correlated). In nature, there is a tendency to equalize. So nature resents a 'hot spot', and immediately starts trying to enforce uniformity. Heat lowers the local atmospheric pressure. Higher pressure then rushes into that weak spot. So if that 'blow torch' didn't move, there would be wind. There would be a single 'hot spot', constantly pulling in heavier air from all around it. Then make that 'hot spot' start moving westward at 360 degrees per day. Voila: Now we see that day after day nature creates an infinite number of ever-changing 'hot spots' near the equator. I have found no weather phenomenon which this solar energy/truck-roaring-down- the-highway model does not explain.
Coriolis asssumes part of this reality--the natural tendency of cold polar air to migrate toward the equator. Fine. But then he posits that the failure of that natural migration to follow a straight southerly azimuth is because of the correlation of latitudes to 'space speeds', which work kind of like bands of different linear velocity / energy gradients parallelling the equator. I see this as a direct rival to the model of the truck roaring down the highway. I think the truck makes a lot more sense.
And then, of course, there is 'Foucault's Pendulum'--introduced as the first empirical LOCALIZED proof of these 'space speed' deflections. Which is my central interest in this whole subject. This is what got me started in the first place. All I ever wanted was to understand how that neat pendulum works. Alas, my studies led to disappointment and disillusion. I have concluded that the bob of a truly spherical pendulum does not vibrate in a plane. That is ALL that is going on there. Launching a spherical pendulum so that it vibrates in a plane is theoretically possible--just like dropping one ball bearing down onto another ball bearing so perfectly that the dropped bearing comes to rest on top of the other. But in reality, you can't seem to pull that trick off. Check it out. Launchers of these Foucault Pendulum exhibits at museums have to prompt the bob upon launching, so as to make it run counter-clockwise in this hemisphere. Otherwise, it would have an equal chance at any given launch of erring clockwise.
Foucault eliminated this pesky problem by magic. He devised a few showy mechanical steps to assure the observer that a perfectly spherical pendulum (plane of swing) had been created (like a magician ostentatiously placing his pretty little assistant in a box and locking the lid). Ergo: the bob will swing in a plane. But it doesn't!! Good gracious! Then Foucault would announce, "Since we have eliminated all other variables from the experiment, yet the bob obviously deflects, there can only be one explanation: the different 'space speeds' of the underlying terrain have caused the deflection."
Give me a break! If any student used logic like that in any physics class in the world, or at any science fair, surely to god he'd be laughed out of town with a big D for Dummy tattooed on his forehead.
This is all just off the top of my head as I sit here, with no coffee yet, a rather fatigued 61-year-old brain starting to knock and ping, and you running out of patience and me running out of time. I've just scratched the surface on Foucault's pendulum. If anyone is willing to listen--I will gladly peck out more chapters on my perspective on Foucault's Pendulum--as time and energy permit.
For now, I must sign off. Big New Year's Eve at our house. Our grandson is coming over. He is 13 months old and--I say this in all objectivity and humility--clearly the Second Coming. My wife and I are a cult who practice shameless rites of devotion in His Presence at any and every opportunity. Oh, yes. His parents are invited, too. I have been on the wagon for over 12 years, so it'll be relatively sane and sober. But we can't wait!
Thanks again for your time, patience, interest, and courtesy. And Happy New Year!
CNG

[Boerseun]

Hi CNG:

Interesting points.

However, with hurricanes in the different hemispheres always being deflected either clockwise or anti-clockwise respectively, the same deflection always happening in the same hemisphere, how else would we account for it, if not using Coriolis?

I battle to see a problem with either Coriolis' effect, or succesfull predictions made with it. Any other mechanism put forward to replace Coriolis would have to say pretty much the same thing in order to achieve the same results.

But it is interesting to challenge scientific principles that we take for granted, nonetheless. We should just provide a feasable alternative.

Happy 2006, by the way!

[cnewtongifford]

To Boerseun: Thanks for you last comments.

From the outset, I have been satisfied that the turbulence / disturbance caused by the constant interference of solar energy is the stick that stirs the drink here in our atmosphere. I have pulled a paddle through water and watched the ever-changing pattern of wakes and whirls play out. I have stood on the shoulder of highways and felt the wild and crazy wakes and whirls and eddies play out. I have always believed that for every effect there is a cause--that every wake and whirl and eddy from every truck that goes by could be scientifically predicted and explained--if you were smart enough. That is the way I feel about Earth's weather.
After reading your last reply I spent just a few minutes on the internet, starting in the general category of fluid dynamics, and found that there is a ton of information out there, including lots of very high-powered research and theory pertaining to vorticity in cuts, including the intriguing little phenomenon of counter rotational vortices. Isn't that what tornados and hurricanes appear to be?
As far as the clockwise-ness of hurricanes: I am satisfied to believe that
the answer is right there in the fluid dynamics of the atmoshere. Constant factors are the fact that the turbulence source (solar heat) is constantly moving east-to-west, plus the fact that the heat impact is constantly greater near the equator than at either pole ( greatest at whatever latitude is nearest the sun --has the most direct angle of sight-- at any given moment).
I am confident that there are lots of studies out there already--analyzing hurricanes as vortices. The answer to any clockwise-ness issues ought to be right there. With one caveat: if any of these studies incorporate a Coriolis Effect as a part of the equation, that "factor" needs to be surgically removed.
Everyone tends to forget that the whole basis of Coriolis is the physicality of Earth's latitudinal space speeds. As discussed elsewhere, this tenet seems to me logically untenable, and absolutely unsupported by ANY physical evidence. My position is that Earth's weather is a legitimate part of the field of fluid dynamics. (Which does not include any forces, effects, legends or myths deriving from space speeds of points on Earth's surface).
I came across a good quotation yesterday, while poking around fluid dynamics country. "Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out." Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530).
I realize I will not uproot lifelong beliefs with a few typewriter pecks here on this web site. And I realize all too well how hard it is to persuade someone to question any of his beliefs. I would not recommend missionary work among the scientists to anyone I liked. They would sooner put you in their cooking pot than convert. Which is natural.
But if I can a plant a seed of doubt in just one good mind, and get some intellectual microscopes focused in tight on Mr. Coriolis--ah, then--who knows what might happen?
Thanks again. Regards, CNG

[cnewtongifford]

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[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by cnewtongifford

My position is that Earth's weather is a legitimate part of the field of fluid dynamics.

...and fluid dynamics, spread over a huge, rotating ball will give you much the same effects as it moves from the poles towards the equator.

[cnewtongifford]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

...and fluid dynamics, spread over a huge, rotating ball will give you much the same effects as it moves from the poles towards the equator.

Which brings us back to that exquisitely mysterious starting point for the Coriolis view of the world. Remember, for centuries, the world's best minds had believed that Earth was the stationary center of the heavens. Then along came Galileo and company, and astronomy, and proved that Earth is a minor player, rotating while orbiting the Sun. It just seemed odd that there had never been any Earthly evidence of this arrangement. So the intelligentsia began a frantic quest to start over and look for such evidence--non-astronomical evidence of Earth's rotational behavior. Enter Coriolis. He hit on the difference in the "space speeds" of different latitudes (inherent in the spherical shape of Earth). He posited that certain events ought to be affected by those "space speed variances"--including certain N/S movements of cold vs warm air. Those space speeds would be part of the laws of fluid dynamics which turn Earth's meteorologic kaleidascope.
You accept that theory, I don't.
Radiant heat from the Sun is constantly "cutting" Earth's atmosphere, and the same laws of fluid dynamics which apply all over Earth's surface are at work as that "cutting" progresses, East to West, 360 degrees per day. Regards & thanks for your interest. CNG

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by cnewtongifford

Earth's rotation accelerates NOTHING within Earth's gravitational field (moving or stationary).

Then how come rockets launched from the equator get a larger boost than rockets launched closer to the poles?

[cnewtongifford]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Then how come rockets launched from the equator get a larger boost than rockets launched closer to the poles?

That is a wonderful question. That is one of the perspectives I have used to try and test or analyze Coriolis.
First, to give you a straight answer to your question: They Don't. Like all the other Earthly physical evidence of the 'Coriolis Effect', this one won't stand up to even mild logical scrutiny. I have searched everywhere I could think of on the web. I have been to every public and college library in this area. I have written to NASA, Goddard, JPL, everywhere I could think of. I have found NO scientific evidence of such a boost.
Of course there WOULD be such a boost if Coriolis' basic hypothesis were true--that 'space speeds' of Earth latitudes are REAL (physical facts). Which is simply bogus.
If you BELIEVE in Coriolis, then you would naturally BELIEVE that latitude and azimuth physically affect the ballistics of Earth- escape rocketry. But it is a belief, not a fact. SUPERSTITION AND LEGEND, not science.
Thanks for your question. Regards, CNG

[Tormod]

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