Coriolis Effect

A rotating Round Earth model predicts that bodies which move through the air will be appear to be deflected Eastwards or Westwards in their path of movement due to the rotation of the earth. This effect has been termed the Coriolis Effect.

The Coriolis Effect, however, appears to be a fictitious effect that is not, and has never been, properly demonstrated with experimental evidence. Its proponents are unable to show that this effect has ever been detected or that it is truly necessary to account for in various operations. The evidence for this effect appears to be based entirely on 'common knowledge', on how things 'should be', and by authors who make 'predictions'; but all articles and documents presented in favor of the "Coriolis Effect" are without reference to, or demonstration of, the critical and necessary experimental evidence to directly prove the matter.

=Origin of the Coriolis Effect=

In an article titled History of the Coriolis Force (Archive) the origin story of the "Coriolis Effect" is described:

=Artillery=

It has been alleged that the Coriolis Effect plays a part in the ballistic trajectory of artillery, and that artillerymen must account for it for accuracy. We are presented with military range tables for accounting for the Coriolis Effect, and so, it is suggested, the Coriolis Effect must be a real effect.

U.S. Army Artillery Coriolis Table Example
We are directed to Table H from the following document:

The Production of Firing Tables for Cannon Artillery (1967) http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/826735.pdf (Archive)

Pg. 103, Table H, Corrections to Range, in Meters, to Compensate for the Rotation of Earth:



When the Coriolis Effect proponents are challenged on the accuracy or validity of this table, those proponents proclaim that if the table were incorrect then artillery and artillerymen would be routinely inaccurate and miss their targets, and how could that be the case?

Artillery Ballistics Not Accurate
From the introduction of the paper provided we read that military artillery, which is purported to require adjustments for the "Coriolis Effect," is indeed, routinely inaccurate. The first round generally misses its target. Only after missing a number of times, and then adjusting the alignment of the cannon to compensate, does the artilleryman hit his or her target.

From the above 1967 artillery paper (Archive), the same document which was provided to us, we read in the introduction on p.10:

In another artillery paper from 1973, we read a similar quote:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/909704.pdf (Archive)

In 2016 a claimed expert named Guy Schuchman says that, despite GPS and modern improvements, the same problems exist today (Archive):

A 2017 paper by Australia's Armament Research Service admits the same:

https://www.icrc.org/en/download/file/36109/ares-icrc-report-indirect-fire.pdf (Archive)

=Sharp Shooting=

It has been alleged that the Coriolis Effect also plays a part in accurate sharp shooting over long distances. However, we find online references (14:30) where claimed sniper veterans have stated that they have never taken the Coriolis Effect into account when shooting. We point to the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy SEAL sniping manuals, which do not mention the Coriolis Effect anywhere in their sniping texts at all.

Sniping Manuals
U.S. Marine Corps Sniping Manuals 1981 FMFM 1-3B Sniping (Archive) 2016 MCTP 3-01E Sniping

U.S. Army Sniper Field Training Manuals 1994 FM 23-10 Sniper Training (Archive) 1989 TC 23-14 Sniper Training and Employment 2003 FM 3-05.222 Special Forces Sniper Training and Employment (Archive)

U.S. Navy SEAL Sniping Manual US Navy SEAL Basic Sniper Training US Navy SEAL Sniper Training Program

The sniper must know the general principles of: perspective, vanishing point, perspective drawing, delineation, and geographical areas of intelligence operations. However, the words "Coriolis" or "Coriolis Effect," do not appear anywhere in the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, or U.S. Navy SEAL sniper manuals.



The reader might ponder why the U.S. Military does not teach this allegedly important effect to its snipers.

Misleading References
The internet is rife with references that the accounting of the Coriolis Effect is actively used, but this is an assumption without demonstration.

The World’s Longest Sniper Kill: The Enemy Shot Dead at 3,871 Yards (Over 2 Miles Away) https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-worlds-longest-sniper-kill-the-enemy-shot-dead-3871-24141 (Archive)

This quote actually says "these are the factors that will affect the bullet," rather than "these are the factors that the sniper accounted for." One is a commentary by the author and the other is a depiction of process. The reader should be able to see and understand that there is a difference.

=Deflection of Falling Bodies=

From the 17th century well into the 19th century the deflection of falling objects was a hotly debated subject, and numerous experiments were conducted to study the landing path of bodies when dropped from high distances. To protect from the wind and elements the experiments were conducted within towers, high churches, and down underground mines and shafts.

From the History of the Coriolis Force (Archive) piece by the Geophysical and Industrial Flows Laboratory there is only one experiment which author of the article references in favor of the Coriolis Effect. All other papers referenced in the article appear to be theoretical analysis'.

This is one of the Deflection of Falling Body Experiments. From 'The Report of the Sixteenth Meeting of the British Association of the Advancement of Science' (Archive) we find an analysis of Dr. Benzenberg's experiments:

Setting Aside All Authority
Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo by Prof. Christopher M. Graney

Starting with Benzenberg's experiments at the bottom of p.106 (Archive) we read an overview of the saga:

Failed Experiments
In the above work Prof. Graney further suggests that efforts were made to hide or otherwise not report failed experiments (Archive):


 * Hooke-failed.png

Earth Not a Globe Chapter
In the book Earth Not a Globe, its author Samuel Rowbotham devotes an entire chapter to the Deflection of Falling Bodies experiment saga.

Deflection of Falling Bodies by Samuel Rowbotham http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za54.htm (Archive)

In this chapter Rowbotham walks us through numerous experiments, the inconsistencies among them, and concludes his chapter with:

Schlebusch Drop Plot
On p.271 of Weather Vol. 58 (Archive), we find an example of the results of such drop experiment that encouraged speculations of the Coriolis Effect:



One quickly sees that the results are not consistent and that any argument in favor of the Coriolis Effect would need to be made on basis of statistics in these types of tests.

If the "Coriolis Effect" shifted the pebbles to the East by about 12 units, then how would this explain the Eastwards concentration of pebbles between 20 and 30 units? If we take away the Eastwards deflection of the "Coriolis Effect" from that group we find that those pebbles are still biased to the East. One would have to know why they are biased in order to know whether the Coriolis Effect had anything to do with it or not. The fact that they were already predisposed to Eastwards bias casts doubt on the matter.

As Rowbotham and others relate, other experiments did not show this Eastwards bias. Picking any few tests as evidence of the Coriolis Effect would be fallacious. Unlike other science cornerstone experiments, which have been repeated by classrooms, laboratories, and research groups for hundreds of years, these experiments were dropped from classroom and scientific interest.

=Torsion Balance Experiments=

Very sensitive Torsion Balance experiments began in 1889, with Barron Rosland von Eötvös' attempt to detect the Coriolis force.

Foundations of Modern Cosmology by Professor John F. Hawley (bio), and Katherine A. Holcomb

From p.219 of the above text (Archive) we read:

Later experiments of the same torsion balance design produced similar results. No effects from any external forces or sources could be found. See Variations in Gravity.

=Water Currents=

Laboratory Water Vortex Experiments
In the 1960s a researcher named Ascher Shapiro claimed that water vortex direction was due to the "Coriolis Effect". The experiments started with bathtubs and then escalated to six foot wide tanks of water:

http://classic.scopeweb.mit.edu/articles/shapiros-bathtub-experiment/ (Archive)

Shapiro’s Bathtub Experiment by Conor Myhrvold November 1, 2011

Controversy because other researchers were getting different and inconsistent results. Shapiro claimed that he could perform the experiment and that all other researchers were wrong.

The below shows that even with extreme care the direction of the vortex can be influenced by very small perturbations such as how the lid is lifted.

http://web.aeromech.usyd.edu.au/history-chapters/C3%20ThermoFluids.pdf (Archive)

When the lid was removed the 'right' way a 'correct' direction occured and when the lid was removed in a 'wrong' way an 'incorrect' direction occured.

In Flow, Nature's Patterns, a Tapestry in Three Parts (Archive) by Dr. Phillip Ball (Bio) the author gives an overview on p. 47:

An abstract ([Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211009172536/https://journals.jps.jp/doi/10.1143/JPSJ.81.074401]) at the Physical Society of Japan states:

Shape of the Drain
Many sources maintain that the shape of the container and the drain plays more of a role in the direction of the water than the alleged 'Coriolis Effect'.

Sorry, Wrong Answer: Trivia Questions That Even Know-It-Alls Get Wrong (Archive) by Rod L. Evans Ph.D.

Aventalearning.com - Earth Science: Semester 1 (Archive)

http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/bottling-tornado.html (Archive)

A Student's Guide to Earth Science (Archive)

Thomas Humphrey, a senior scientist at the San Francisco Exploratorium, says (Archive):

Veritasium and Smarter Every Day Experiment
A popular video Does Water Swirl the Other Way in the Southern Hemisphere? claims to demonstrate the rotation of the earth with a drain experiment. A kiddie pool was drained, concluding that the result was due to the rotation of the earth.

Meteorologist Tom Di Liberto at American Scientist goes over the history of the water swirl controversy and explains that this video is not sufficient proof of the earth's rotation:

https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/science-culture/the-coriolis-and-the-commode (Archive)

D. S. Parasnis
Professor Parasnis of the University of Lulea, author of Principles of Applied Geophysics, wrote to New Scientist to inform them of the following:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13918906-400-letters-in-a-spin/ (Archive)


 * Letters: In a spin
 * By D. S. PARASNIS
 * D. S. Parasnis University of Lulea, Sweden
 * D. S. Parasnis University of Lulea, Sweden

Large Scale Water Currents
We find the assertion that large scale water currents rotate in accordance with the "Coriolis Effect" to be untrue. See Coriolis Effect (Weather)

=Wind Currents=

We find the assertion that the wind currents generally rotate in accordance with the "Coriolis Effect" to be untrue. See Coriolis Effect (Weather)

=Addendum=

Many of these discussions are often put to an end after a simple request of evidence. 'Mountains' of evidence are claimed to exist for phenomena such as this, yet when the Round Earth proponent is questioned in a simple and polite manner on the necessary demonstration, we find that the response is generally, to any reasonable standard, woefully insufficient. Data should surely exist in which an experiment is repeated again and again by science investigators with the same result, rather than sparse references to singular instances in which a correct rotation or event occurred. It is quite curious that this effect cannot be clearly demonstrated, and is so easily defeated with such simple questioning, despite our opponent's access to the vast collection of human knowledge that is the internet.