Gustave Gaspard de Coriolis lived from 1792 to 1843.
He was a smart guy. Using just a pen, paper and mathematics, he figured out why the wind turns, curves, and goes around in circles. It is because of a force called - what else - the Coriolis force.
Monsieur Coriolis figured out something basic, but tricky to understand. To make it easier, here you can explore the Coriolis force with gadgets, games, and stories.
What's up with the Coriolis force? Find out here!
To continue with this you will need the Macromedia Shockwave
Player plug-in installed on your computer. If you do not already
have Shockwave you can download it for free from http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/
Once you have Shockwave installed you are ready to roll.
Just click here and let the fun begin . .
.
If you have comments or suggestions about this learning module please email us!
Minimum requirements for using the Shockwave Player with this web activity
on your computer are:
A Pentium 166 running Windows 95, Windows NT version 4.0 or later OR
A Power PC 120 Macintosh running system 8.1 or later.
You will also need 32 MB of installed RAM, a color monitor, and
Netscape Navigator 4.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5, or America
Online 4.0 Web browser.
You will need to set your browser display window to at least 640 x
360 pixels.
If virtual memory is turned on, you should turn it off and restart your computer before exploring these activities.
If you would like to know more about Coriolis force and related topics check out these web sites:
http://stratus.ssec.wisc.edu/courses/gg101/coriolis/coriolis.html