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Earth Rotating Frame

The earth, we know, rotates; it goes around the Sun in nearly 365.25 days and also spins about its own axis (line joining North and South poles) with the time period of 24 hrs. Both these motions imply that earth is really a non-inertial frame.

For typical physical processes involving time duration upto a few hours, the rotation of earth around the Sun can be reasonably neglected. (We shall assume that earth moves in a straight line with constant speed for this purpose.) However, the rotation about its axis (i.e. spin) does produce measurable affects on the motion of objects occurring on earth. The inertial forces, viz. centrifugal and coriolis forces, emerge and act on the objects when their motion is observed from (a frame fixed to) earth.

We first discuss the centrifugal force on earth; its primary consequence is that it changes the ‘effective’ value of weight of an object at different points on the surface of earth. Later, we shall describe the role of coriolis force on moving objects. The rotation of the plane of a simple pendulum due to coriolis force, observed by JBL Foucault in 1851, became the first conclusive proof of the rotation of earth about its axis.