As OT as possible: bath water

You know that bath water goes down the plughole clockwise in the
northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere?

Or is it the other way round? Whatever.

And people always wonder what happens on the equator? They say it can go
either way, but have you ever known anyone who can say for definite?

Last night, I heaved myself from a fantastic giant cast-iron bathtub
(circa 1900) in my hotel room here in Quito, pulled out the plug,
watched it spiral anti-clockwise and thought: "Hang about, I am never,
but never going to get another chance to do this..."

So I disturbed the water to kill the spiral, and waited until it
restarted. And it started to spiral.....

CLOCKWISE!!!!

It really, really did. It goes either way.

This posting is brought to you by the Pointless Experimentation Dept.

PS - for the aeroplaneisti, you want to see take-offs and landings at
Quito Airport, altitude over 9000 feet. According to the display on my
KLM MD-11, we touched down at over 300kph. Fark.

 

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect

 

I know it is a myth..

Depends on the residual motion of the water or so I've heard..

Does the beer in your glass form a clockwise or anti-clockwise spiral
when you drink it? Enquiring minds and all that!
It might take a number of repeated experiments to make sure..

Phil

 

Several here go both ways too.

 

It is not true. It is an urban myth.
There are too many factors to take into account other than the Coriolis
effect.

 

Depends on the plug hole ...

 

I did that! Got to a hotel room in Sao Paolo at some insane hour and
solemnly watched the bath water go dahn the plug'ole. It went in both ways.

Ali

 

On Fri, 1 Sep 2006 15:05:28 +0100,

I can recall an out-take of someone trying to demonstrate that the
coriolis forces were simply too small to be significant and that the
water should go either way wherever one is.

Sods Law decreed that the water in the plastic basin refused to spiral
out in both directions!

 

On Fri, 1 Sep 2006 15:05:28 +0100,

According to my old Flight Commander, it's a lot of fun. Best to have
two altimeters, to avoid unpleasantness.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..83466../..22358.../..31893.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR Clues: 52 Pts:1005 Miles:3416

 

I recall a program on TV many moons ago where a chap took a bucket with
a small hole in the bottom, filled it with water and added some straw.

10 paces north of the equator it went one way, 10 paces south it went
the other, stood directly over the equator and it just drained.

 

Never does when I'm drunk. Only when I've been the furthest away does it
spin.

 

My washbasin doesn't spiral at all. I think it drains too quickly for the water
to start rotating. I'll have to try the bath next. Do we still have a drought?

If you fill the bath and wait for the water to completely stop moving, then
before checking which way it drains, it is amusing to drip some small inkdrops
into the water from an inch or so above and watch the patterns they make.
It probably helps if you are drunk....

 

Extremely many moons ago I saw a man do exactly this at the equator
north of Nairobi.
Now, I had heard that it should not work. And I guess it's easy to get
the northern and southern part of the show going by manipulating
the bowl in some way to get the water started in the desired direction.
But how the hell did he manage to stop any residual motion in the water
to achieve the draining without rotation when he stood right over the line?

Did he trick the audience or is the myth-busting actually the myth?

 

Yeah, yeah

it doesn't just switch on north or south of the equator, the effect 10
paces from the equator would be insignificant, wouldn't it.

 

Huh?

 

Aw, spoilsport