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Ogden News

Physics Students Prove Coriolis Force in Ball Throwing Experiment

Wednesday, March 1st, 2023

Throwing or catching a ball seems straightforward, but there are physics at work in these simple actions.

Using rotating merry go rounds at nearby Roland Bland Park, students were able to witness the effects of the Coriolis force in a real-world environment.

Hilltoppers in Professor Gordon Emslie’s Physics 450 class threw a ball in a straight line on a rotating platform. They could see the ball appear to curve in the opposite direction of the platform's rotation - an expression of the Coriolis force.

This natural phenomenon impacts a variety of fields, such as the rotation of hurricanes, wind patterns in the atmosphere, and objects in flight. Follow this link for more photos and a video!

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