I did horribly on my AP physics test btw lol
(also got a headache trying to read the wikipedia entry haha)
In: Earth Science
Say you’re standing in the center of a giant spinning disc. There’s someone else standing on the edge of the disc. Because the outside of the disc has a bigger distance to cover, it rotates faster. You are stationary, only rotating on a single point.
If you throw a baseball to them, as it travels outwards to the edge of the disc, it goes to areas that are rotating faster and faster relative to it, so it will lag behind. But also, when you throw the baseball, it only keeps its momentum from the moment you let go. So when you throw it, it travels in a straight line instead of following the rotation of the disc.
So even if the person standing on the edge threw it to you (who is stationary), they would still miss. The ball would keep their momentum and travel further in the direction the disc is rotating.
Tom Scott has a great video visualizing this in a spinning room. Him and someone else are standing on the edges. As he throws a ball, it looks like it curves to the wall, but you can see from a stationary camera, that it’s actually going in a straight line.
[https://youtu.be/bJ_seXo-Enc?t=183](https://youtu.be/bJ_seXo-Enc?t=183)
[https://youtu.be/bJ_seXo-Enc?t=224](https://youtu.be/bJ_seXo-Enc?t=224)
TLDR; If you throw a ball from the edge of a spinning disc to the center, it goes straight, but looks like it curves because your reference point is spinning.
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