Coriolis Effect

Stand on a spinning merry-go-round and roll a ball straight to your friend. The ball misses — curving away, as if pushed by a hidden hand. The ball went straight. You were the one turning.

Physicists call the hidden hand the Coriolis effect: on a rotating platform, straight paths appear curved. It is why hurricanes spin and why long-range artillery needs correction tables.

The general lesson is worth more than the physics: when you are inside a moving system, straight lines look bent. A company in decline misreads every honest effort. A mind in a habit misreads every straight suggestion. The distortion is invisible from within — that is what makes it a frame.

When everything around you seems to curve strangely, consider the possibility that the platform is spinning and you are standing on it. Sometimes the correction needed is not in your aim. It is in noticing your ground.