Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: curvature of buckets of water



I have a question about "absolute rotation." If one placed the bucket of
water in the center of the rotating platform, one gets a curved surface.
If one places the bucket of water off-center of the rotating platform, one
also gets a curved surface but the orientation of the surface will be
different. Will the shape still be the same? That is, if one is in the
bucket's frame of reference, is there any way one can tell that the bucket
is off-center rather than just "tipped over" (away from what appears to be
the center of rotation)?

In a related matter, suppose one is trapped inside a box on a foreign
planet. Is there an experiment that person can do to determine whether
they are located coincident with the axis of rotation (i.e., north or
south pole) rather than at some other latitude?

----------------------------------------------------------
| Robert Cohen Department of Physics |
| East Stroudsburg University |
| bbq@esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428 |
| **note new area code** |
----------------------------------------------------------