In Australia water spins in the oposite direction in the toilet!!!

fab_mary

Insane? or I watch Simsons too much....?

fab_mary

Any people from Australia???
is it clock wise or counter clock wise???
Just curious...

AARRRGH

Google is your friend.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1244639.htm

monkeyfudge

No.. the hemisphere that you are in has no effect on the way that water flows.

You're talking about the coriolis effect and it only effects large things like hurricanes and storms... if it were strong enough to effect the direction water flows down a plug hole then it would also cause CDs to spin in the opposite direction as well.

Laguna

Yeah the water spins down the drain in the opposite direction in Australia.

elivsvonchiaing

The effect is due to polarity of water molecules; Am too lazy to google this - but when I get the plutonium am going back to Stockholm to claim my prize :rolleyes:

(If this was in the 1920's am going to pay a visit to Moulin rouge too :cool: )

monkeyfudge

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

The effect is due to polarity of water molecules; Am too lazy to google this - but when I get the plutonium am going back to Stockholm to claim my prize :rolleyes:

(If this was in the 1920's am going to pay a visit to Moulin rouge too :cool: )

I'm pretty sure it's due to angular momentum. And the effect definitely doesn't take place in a toilet bowl, so I don't know what Laguna is talking about either...

Capt'n Midnight

Don't they also put slight geometry changes in baths and stuff so that water goes the right way. Also you have to wait at least 24 hours for the rotation applied by the taps on filling it up to settle before you get un biased results.

But IIRC it doesn't give any signicant push unless the object is very large like a 1,000 wide weather system. You could work it out and see how if it exceeds Brownian motion energy.

What if the basin is on the equator ?

ArthurDent

Didn't yer man from Mothy Python, that Palin chappie do this expt on his "Poles apart" programme? IIRC he tried (and failed) to show no rotation on equator and opposite direction on both hemispheres.

dr zoidberg

monkeyfudge wrote:

You're talking about the coriolis effect and it only effects large things like hurricanes and storms... if it were strong enough to effect the direction water flows down a plug hole then it would also cause CDs to spin in the opposite direction as well.

Indeed, I read an article about this before. The effect is miniscule in a toilet or bathtub and the design of it has much more of an effect on which way the water flows. However, as said, in extremely large incidences such as hurricanes and ocean currents the direction is affected by this.

fasterkitten

myth

ecksor

I had a fluid dynamics course in Spring given by a guy who was professor of Applied mathematics at the department I'm at. During one lecture after he'd proved that the direction will be the result of the sums of the swirls introduced by motion in the water he stood in front of us all and gave a remarkably passionate speech about what a load of junk the theory is about it being related to the hemisphere you're in. Then he described an experiment to do in a sink or bath tub to verify this.

I also recall him explaining at length how smoke rings work.

Sarsfield

I always put the lid down before flushing. And open a window.

Gurgle

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

when I get the plutonium am going back to Stockholm to claim my prize :rolleyes:

(If this was in the 1920's am going to pay a visit to Moulin rouge too :cool: )

You may need to make a slight detour via Paris.

JSK 252

Anyone who is interested about this theory should watch brainiac on sky one as the results are different, even in the southern hemisphere.

Capt'n Midnight

JSK 252 wrote:

Anyone who is interested about this theory should watch brainiac on sky one

It in the same league as mythbusters for scientific authenticity. Pure edutainment.

IIRC some homeware makers of basins have a slight angle in them to make the water go the right way


Oh CRT monitors and televisions are most definitaly calibrated according to which hemisphere they are used in.

pH

http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html
http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.htm