I think that was my point.
Facts as I know them:
- There is a force that causes large bodies to take on a direction, like
hurricanes and other weather systems, as you point out, called the Coriolis effect.
- Some scientists (or maybe just backyard scientists) applied this to smaller
items, and concluded that a bathtub drain would drain in a particular direction.
I heard this repeatedly as a kid, from different sources. (I studied "popular
science" way back when.)
- When carefully examined, random perturbations in initial turbulence, friction,
etc etc all far outweigh the Coriolis effect at the scale of the bathroom tub,
so this effect could never have been seen.
That's what I was talking about when I said "some scientists". It was those "backyard scientists".
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker | [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
Whenever drain direction it comes up I tell people my right shoe wears out faster than my left ;)Some people are so gullible... To get back on topic... Perl being intuitive... I can hardly believe how cool some of the things I come up with are to me. I am still a fool but I do things now that I never thought were possible. I have yet to generate any complaint about the language or the community. Prost, Moe
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If I were on an ocean liner, crossing the equator, how far from the equator would I start to notice a change in direction, if I flushed a toilet? Would there be a gradual slowing down of the direction and then at a specific point in time would it just kind of "glug" with no rotation? Also where would this change take place in miles? I take it from what you said that water drains the same way in both hemispheres...how is it that this doesn't change if in fact it doesn't?
Reta, Maine, USA | [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |