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Coriolis force

The Coriolis force plays an important role in meteorology – from the point of view of an observer at rest on the surface of the earth, it explains the deflection of certain wind flows.

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surface

Geometric space with two dimensions. Examples include the plane or the surface of a sphere.

point

Elementary "building block" of geometrical entities such as surfaces or more general spaces. For instance, a surface is the set of all its points, of all possible locations on the surface, and all geometrical objects in that surface are defined by the points that belong to them - for instance, a line on the surface is the set of (infinitely many) points.

observer

In the context of relativity, "observer" can mean two different things. Often, observer is synonymous with reference frame or (spacetime-)coordinate system: An observer in this sense is someone who assigns coordinates to everything that happens around him. In particular, all events are assigned space coordinate values and a time coordinate value. In the context of special relativity, it is often the case that when one talks about an observer, what is really meant is an inertial observer, corresponding to a special type of reference frame. On other occasions, the term is used in a more narrow sense - in those cases, an observer is someone sitting at a certain point in space and using the light signals reaching that location to construct an image of his surroundings. In the context of optical effects in relativity, for instance gravitational lensing, observer is usually meant in this way.

force

In mechanics: Influence acting on a body, trying to accelerate it.

More generally: All influences by which elementary or other particles can interact; in this sense, force and interaction are synonymous. In the standard model of particle physics, there are three elementary forces: electromagnetism, the weak (nuclear) force and the strong (nuclear) force, while there is no quantum description of the fourth fundamental interaction, gravity.

Coriolis force

A fictitious or inertial force which an observer in a rotating reference frame needs to introduce in order to explain why certain moving objects appear to undergo acceleration at right angles to their direction of motion. The Coriolis force plays an important role in meteorology - from the point of view of an observer at rest on the surface of the earth, it explains the deflection of certain wind flows.

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Coriolis force

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