THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[SIXTH SERIES 



JUNE 1917 



XLIV. TJie Motion of a Particle- on the Surface of a Smooth 

 Rotating Globe. By F. J. W. Whipple *. 



1. rpHE problem which is discussed in the following notes 

 1 has not received the consideration which its physical 

 interest merits. There is no reference to it in the standard 

 text-hooks on Dynamics. 



Sprung considered it from the meteorologist's point of 

 view in a paper published in Wiedemann's Annalen, vol. xiv. 

 1881, and now accessible to English readers in Cleveland 

 Abbe's ' Third Collection of Papers on the Mechanics of the 

 Earth's Atmosphere,' but he does not go into detail in 

 the analysis of the various cases which can arise. He 

 confines his attention to motion near the poles, and Avith 

 reference to the wider problem he writes : " the solution 

 of this problem leading to elliptic integrals does not seem 

 to be worth while .... since the notion formerly enter- 

 tained, that the particles of air actually follow the 'inertia 

 path ' has been completely refuted by synoptic weather- 

 charts." The contrary view that the nature of the forces 

 which produce the actual paths will be realized more readily 

 and more fully if the " inertia paths " are known seems to 

 be more consistent with general experience. The study of 

 motion under no forces should precede the theoretical study 

 of motion governed by pressure. 



* Communicated by the Director of the Meteorological Office. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 6. Vol". 33. No. 198. June 19 L7. 2 K 



