Overview

Liquid placed into a cylindrical container and rotated about the container’s central axis will be subject to centripetal forces that pulls the liquid toward the container’s center. The result is that the liquid is molded into a rotationally symmetric shape dependent on the rotational velocity of the system, the density and volume of the liquid, gravitational forces, and shape of the container. The objective of this experiment is to use these variables with differential equations and calculus of variations to derive a formula that models the shape of a particular liquid, in this case water.