Why Newton’s bucket cannot account for Earth’s rotation

Alexandre Watzky (1)

1 MSME - Laboratoire de Modélisation et Simulation Multi Echelle

This note illustrates, at an undergraduate level, how an a priori legitimate assumption of uniform gravity can lead to intuitively satisfying but false results. Considering the simple situation of a liquid contained in a bowl at rest with respect to the ground at the North Pole, we look for the shape of its surface, taking Earth’s rotation into account. The classical problem of a rotating fluid is converted to that of the determination of Earth’s shape.

Mots clés: fluid mechanics; Earth's rotation; Huygens; Newton

Domaines: Physique Classique [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique [physics]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Alexandre Watzky. Why Newton’s bucket cannot account for Earth’s rotation. European Journal of Physics, 2018, 39 (1), ⟨10.1088/1361-6404/aa8bab⟩. ⟨hal-01659126⟩