Einstein's Tea Leaves and Pressure Systems in the Atmosphere
Name
Einstein'sTeaLeavesTPT.pdf
Size
1.37 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3f415a6015e0f519c8f0eada2a30b21f
Author(s)
Tandon, Amit
Marshall, John C
Date Issued
May 2010
Journal
The Physics Teacher
Publisher
American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)
Citation
Tandon, Amit and John Marshall. “Einstein’s Tea Leaves and Pressure Systems in the Atmosphere.” The Physics Teacher 48, 5 (May 2010): 292–295 © 2010 American Association of Physics Teachers
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Tea leaves gather in the center of the cup when the tea is stirred. In 1926 Einstein explained the phenomenon in terms of a secondary, rim‐to‐center circulation caused by the fluid rubbing against the bottom of the cup. This explanation can be connected to air movement in atmospheric pressure systems to explore, for example, why low‐pressure systems tend to be stormy and high‐pressure systems are fair weather. Here, following Einstein's lead, we revisit the tea leaf phenomenon, make the connection with atmospheric pressure systems, and describe an illustrative laboratory experiment.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3393055
