Empirical Earth · Gravity, Buoyancy & the Air

The Kugel fountain: a bad analogy for the oceans, and the better reason they stay

The claim

“A Kugel fountain shows water clinging to a spinning granite ball, proof of a spinning Earth with oceans.”

What is measured

The Kugel demonstrates a near-frictionless bearing, not gravity. Cut its pump and the film drains in seconds and the ball drops. The oceans have no pump. They stay because gravity beats the spin by roughly 290 to 1, a margin you can measure.

What would show this is wrong

a Kugel that keeps its ball aloft after the pump is switched off, or any measurement showing the equatorial spin acceleration rivaling surface gravity instead of trailing it by two orders of magnitude.

Sources

  1. World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84). NGA Standardization Document, defining ellipsoid parameters (a, f, b). National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. WGS 84 link
  2. Physics of the granite sphere fountain. Snoeijer and van der Weele show the Kugel is a hydrostatic bearing: a pumped water film thinner than a credit card floats the stone, and the long spin link
  3. Earth Kugel, Science Museum of Virginia. A 29-ton granite Earth carved with the continents, floated on a pumped water film so a visitor can spin it by hand, paired with a scale Moon 250 feet link
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