• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.787-798
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• 2009

A new apparatus was presented in order to help understand the concept of the Coriolis force which is essential in understanding the trajectories of the atmospheric current and the tide of seawater. In the apparatus proposed in high-school textbooks, since the slide from which the ball is released is set outside the rotating disk, it was not possible to interpret, with the trajectory of the ball on the disk, the motion of the atmosphere and the current of seawater occurring as a result of the Coriolis force. In order to resolve such problem, a new apparatus was developed in which the slide was set on the disk and rotated with the disk. Experiments were carried out using both the existing apparatus and the new apparatus, and the results were compared. While, in the experiment performed with the existing apparatus, it was difficult to analyze the trajectory of ball because the motion of the ball was not smooth when it hit the disk, in the experiment with the new apparatus it was much easier to analyze the trajectories. It was also possible to compare the trajectories when the initial velocity of the ball was varied.