Forces and conservation laws for motion on our spheroidal Earth

We explore the forces and conservation laws that govern motion of a hockey puck slides without friction on smooth, rotating, self-gravitating spheroid. The earth's oblate spheroidal shape (apart from small-scale surface features) is determined by balancing gravitational hold it together against centrifugal try to tear apart. earth achieves this when apparent force puck, defined as vector sum forces, perpendicular at every point surface. Thus, deformations neutralize leaving only Coriolis its motion. Motion spheroid therefore differs profoundly rotating sphere, for which plays key role. Kinetic energy reflects difference: On stably spheroid, kinetic conserved in frame, whereas inertial frame. derive these results illustrate them using CorioVis software visualizing