Flattening Earth
Safety Warnings
Warning: Rotating Equipment Safety
Purpose
A flexible hoop on a hand-cranked centrifugal machine flattens into an oblate shape as rotation speed increases, modeling Earth's equatorial bulge. Students see how centrifugal effects deform rotating bodies and connect this to planetary oblateness.
Figure 1:
The flexible hoop during rotation, flattened into an oblate shape with equatorial bulging and polar flattening visible through motion blur.
Figure 2:
The flexible hoop at rest maintains a circular cross-section, representing the shape a non-rotating body would assume.
Demo Apparatus
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