Dave
Dave asked Edward Ashton:

Hello Mr. Aston. I appreciated the solid physics base woven into your highly entertaining story. There was a reference to Coriolis effect that I didn't understand - when Micky7 is riding the rotating band girdling the ship (or dome) that was meant to induce the effect of gravity, he's grateful the C effect doesn't bring up his lunch. I don't understand how the C effect would dominate this. Mostly centrifugal force?

Edward Ashton Thanks for the kind words! In answer to your question: when a human is spun around an axis, there are several forces in play simultaneously. Centrifugal force presses you outward. Centripetal force (in Mickey's case applied by the floor of the carousel) balances that force and keeps you from flying away. If those were all there was, then rotation would be a perfect simulation of gravity and nobody would puke on the cyclotron ride at the county fair. Unfortunately, you're also subject to Coriolis force, which acts perpendicular to the direction of motion and the axis of rotation. The practical effect of this is to smear fluid around your inner ear whenever the orientation of your head changes, which tends to induce intense nausea in most people. That's why you're generally okay on the cyclotron as long as you stare straight ahead, but you get sick as soon as you turn your head.

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