VapidActions t1_j8ppvb0 wrote on February 16, 2023 at 1:38 AM

Reply to comment by GodzlIIa in Tortoise vs Hare by toonhole

"Up" is relative. Looking at the earth, you're shooting outwards from the sphere (or really irregular elipsoid). By the time the bullet reaches its destination, the planet has turned, resulting in an offset.

The Coriolis effect is a "fictitious force", meaning it's not an actual inertial force, but is calculated as a force based on a frame of reference. In this case, the frame of reference doesn't include the earth's rotation - you can't see that happening, and yet even though the bullet went straight up, something caused it to come back down in a different location, a force, a fictitious force, a Coriolis force.

GodzlIIa t1_j8qh5zj wrote on February 16, 2023 at 5:24 AM

Yes so up would mean radially outward. And yea I usually just hear it referred to as the Coriolis effect instead of force.

I'm familiar with doing calculations for an object south/north bound but I don't recall with one travelling vertically upward.

So if I think about it since the angular velocity is constant as you travel vertically but the tangential velocity is not, that would mean a bullet fired up would eventually be travelling slower then the air around it with its East/west component of tangential velocity. Which would push it, but then on the way down I can't help but feel it would have the opposite effect and kind of cancel out.

SO in the northern hemisphere if I shoot a bullet up (radially outward) which direction would it land? Perhaps I'm not understanding it.