Homework 11

Mechanics 701, Fall 2009 Due: Wed, December 2 1 Problem 4-21

A particle is thrown up vertically with initial speed v0 , reaches a maximum height and falls back to ground. Show that the Corilois deection when it again reaches the ground is opposite in direction, and four times greater in magnitude, than the Coriolis deection when it is dropped t rest from the same maximum height. Solution: Consider a particle thrown up from the ground. Its vertical velocity is vz = v0 gt. Total travel time is T = 2v0 /g. Coriolis force creates a small deviation from the original trajectory and can be taken into account as a small perturbation which does not alter the vertical motion. Then the Coriolis acceleration creates a horizontal velocity
t

vy (t) =
0

2vz (s)ds = 2 v0 t

gt2 2

where x-axis is chosen along the projection of the Earths angular velocity on the horizontal plane. The horizontal displacement is then given by
T

y1 =
0

vy (t)dt = 2

v0 T 2 gT 3 2 6

3 4v0 3g 2

Next, consider the particle falling from the height. Its vertical velocity is vz = gt and the time of ight is T /2. We get t gt2 vy = 2 gs ds = 2 2 0
T /2

y2 =
0

gt2 dt =

g 3

T 2

3 v0 y1 = 3g 2 4

Problem 4-22
A projectile is red horizontally along Earths surface. Show that to a rst approximation the angular deviation from the direction of the re resulting from the Coriolis eect varies linearly with time at a rate cos where is the angular velocity of Earths rotation and is the co-latitude, the direction of deviation being to the right in the northern hemisphere.

Solution: Let us point x-axis along the re direction. The z-axis is up, and y-axis points to the left with respect to the re direction. The Coriolis acceleration is 2[ v] = (0, 2v sin , 0) where is the angle between v and . It is easy to see that = /2 , thus the perpendicular acceleration is 2v cos to the right. After time t the perpendicular displacement is |y| = v cos t2 , while the projectile covers a distance |x| = vt. The angular deviation is = I.e, the rate of angular deviation is cos . 1 |y| = ( cos )t |x|

Problem 4-23
The Foucault pendulum experiment consists of setting a long pendulum in motion at a point on the surface of the rotating Earth with its momentum originally in the vertical plane containing the pendulum bob and the point of suspension. Show that the pendulums subsequent motion may be described by saying that the plane of oscillations rotates uniformly 2 cos radians per day, where is the co-latitude. What is the direction of rotation? The approximation of small oscillations may be used, if desired.

t=T f t=0 2m[ x v] t = T/2

Figure 1: Top view. Forces acting on a Foucault pendulum: the central force f and the Coriolis force 2m[ v]. Solution: We will discuss two solutions of this problem. (A) Naive solution. Without the Coriolis force, the pendulum would move along the x-axis. Assuming small oscillations we can write x = R cos(t), vx = R sin t. Next, we can calculate the y deection as a perturbation. The Coriolis acceleration ay = 2z vx gives
t

vy = 2z R
0

sin s ds = 2z R(cos t 1) .

The y-displacement in half period of pendulums oscillations can be calculated as

T /2

y = 2z R
0

(cos t 1)dt = z RT ,

where T = 2/. The deection angle in half-period is = y = z T R

In one day, which is a period of Earth rotation = 2/, the pendulum makes N = /T = / oscillations and is deected by the total angle = N (2) = 4 z = 4 cos .

This answer is twice the correct result... What went wrong? Let us look at the gure. We assumed that the Coriolis force is the only one acting in y direction. This is not true. The radial force f (r) also has a component in y direction. Component fy is proportional to f , the deection angle, which in turn is proportional to . We see that the Coriolis force and the projection fy are both rst order in small and one cannot discard fy in the calculation. 2

(B) Correct solution. Let us still use the small amplitude approximation, but include the radial force. Then the central force has the form f = (fx , fy ) = (kx, ky). The motion in x direction is only slightly perturbed and is given by the same expressions as in Sec. A: x(t) = R cos t and vx (t) = R cos t, = k/m. The correct equation of motion in y direction is y = 2 y 2z vx = 2 y 2z R sin t This is an equation of forced oscillations with driving frequency equal to the resonance frequency. Its general solution can be found in the form y(t) = A cos t + B sin t + at cos t Substituting this into the equation we nd that constants A and B can be arbitrary, and a has to be given by a = z R Coecients A and B are determined from the initial conditions y(0) = 0, y(0) = 0. We get A = 0 and B = z R/. Hence 1 y(t) = z R t cos t sin t We are interested in the horizontal displacement at t = T /2 = / which is equal to y(T /2) = z R. Angular rotation during a half-period is = y/R = z / which gives the correct result for the total rotation in one day: z = N (2) = 2 = 2 cos . (C) Another nice solution is given in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum