At a point P on the earth's surface, an enormous perfectly | StudySoup

Textbook Solutions for Classical Mechanics

Chapter 9 Problem 9.34

Question

At a point P on the earth's surface, an enormous perfectly flat and frictionless platform is built. The platform is exactly horizontal that is, perpendicular to the local free-fall acceleration gp. Find the equation of motion for a puck sliding on the platform and show that it has the same form as (9.61) for the Foucault pendulum except that the pendulum's length L is replaced by the earth's radius R. What is the frequency of the puck's oscillations and what is that of its Foucault precession? [Hints: Write the puck's position vector, relative to the earth's center 0 as R r, where R is the position of the point P and r = (x, y, 0) is the puck's position relative to P. The contribution to the centrifugal force involving R can be absorbed into gp and the contribution involving r is negligible. The restoring force comes from the variation of g as the puck moves.] To check the validity of your approximations, compare the approximate size of the gravitational restoring force, the Coriolis force, and the neglected term m (St x r) x St in the centrifugal force.

Solution

Step 1 of 5

As we can see from fig the difference between Foucault pendulum and sliding on a flat plane with co-latitude  is that there is no tension force, however, as we see from the fig as we move away from point  gravity  is no longer in  vertical direction, but has vertical and  and  components equal to the  sin  where alpha is the angle of  position to  to  and it can be represented in  and  direction as  and .

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full solution

Title Classical Mechanics 0 
Author John R Taylor
ISBN 9781891389221

At a point P on the earth's surface, an enormous perfectly

Chapter 9 textbook questions

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