They did the basin in the USA and the spin was counter clockwise every time. Then the cool part was they got on a merry go round turning clockwise and did it again and it did spin clockwise every time. Don't know. Just weird. Maybe a question we will never have an answer to. The earth spins counter clockwise on the Northern hemisphere, but from someone living on the Southern hemisphere, it appears to spin clockwise turn a globe upside down to see this.
Objects not attached to the surface of the earth water in a sink going down a drain will create a vortex going the opposite direction. So in the Northern hemisphere, it moves clockwise. In the Southern hemisphere, it moves counter clockwise. On the equator, water goes straight down. It isn't alway that simple since the earth is not a perfect sphere, but that is the general idea. This is a basic explanation of the Coriolis Effect.
There are several different experiments you can do to see the effect many are in video form on the internet. Calvin Roberts, Detroit. US The Coriolis acceleration definitely has an effect - how large it is, I am not sure, but the longer it takes to drain, the larger the effect. You have water going down toward the center of the Earth, and the Earth spinning around the North Pole.
The "cross product" of velocity with spin gives the Coriolis acceleration. This is an acceleration, so it would take time to build up, and cannot overcome preexisting powerful momentum opposing it before the water exits via the drain, i. Reid, Huntsville, AL USA Please tell me that all or most of the people that have added their 5 cents worth to the above are under 5 years old. If not, there is a major blockage in education in you area! Clash, Dunston, UK" I mean really, are you living on the surface of the earth or inside?
I can confirm that playing snooker in Australia is the same as playing in the UK; the balls don't curve in different directions. Do you drink snooker balls? Ever heard of Liquid, solid and gas? Guess which one water is. And by the way, if it is a scientific fact, then please show me to the uneducated, brainless scientist that proved that one! John Walker, Derby, UK" And you John, so you are saying that people in the South look at their watches from the back and in the North from the front, or vise verse or are you saying that watches turn the opposite way in the North and South?
What a retarded experiment!!! Everything that is measured on the earth is taken from the surface, looking at the surface and is measured for that particular area, not from above and below.
Kirsty , Leeds, England" Kirsty girl, please don't become something that has anything to do with science or physics. Maybe think on the lines of I don't know, housewife? Just e3liminate the problem of sink and plug hole issues and just pour the water people!! No one said anything about what happened to the water at the poles. I came into some money and, having nothing better to do, I took a cruise to Antartcia and managed to catch a ride to a camp very close to the South pole.
I took along a flat wash basin that had a hole and a rubber plug in it. I filled it about half full and took it outside so it would not be influenced by structural or gravitational fields of the buildings. I carefully pulled the plug and watched. Unfortunately the water froze before it could drain out so I guess this is why the effect is only seen at or near the equator.
Land Waylamd, Chino. California ISA When you get drunk which way the room is spinning? Seriously now, I think the water is just random, but is true for the tornados. The north hemisphere the tornados are spinning counter clockwise and on south hemisphere the tornados are turning clockwise.
Dan the man, Bucharest Romania Unbelievable. The vortex only occurs when the water level is low so should in effect do the same to your half finished cup of tea. It doesn't because the force while exists is not strong enough. People have talked of physics and shapes of bowl etc but nobody mentioned the real force of the waste pipe.
Unromantic as it may be the swirl of a plug hole is simply due to the way the waste pipe is configured explaining the phonomenem of hand swirled sinks turning the other way. When you empty a bath there is no vortex as the pipe is full due to the pressure of the water. Only when the pressure reduces due to the volume of water does a swirl appear the direction of which depends on the shape of the pipe below. Think not what you are told but what is physically happening otherwise you will end up stood on the equator listening to a charlatan with a bucket.
The effect of draining amplifies small movement as the water moves to the centre the same way a ballet dancer increases spin speed by putting arms in. Any chaotic system can be influenced by tiny changes, The butterfly effect.
Other effects such as basin shape may be larger but over a large number of tests on different set ups random factors should cancel out leaving any small consistant factor to show a measurable majority, or of course the most popular basin design could tip the balance. Steve Turner, Witham, Essex I have spent the last 15 years exploring this phenomena on a full time basis and I can now give the definitive answer.
Ideally one should consume a kebab prior to urination. I hope this answers the question once and for all.
Baz l'hommedeleau, London UK Wow people, just wow. Some answers are way out there. Others are so convoluted that it's beyond reasoning. Only one person has come close to a logical answer to the apparent 'different' direction. Simple answer, the direction is the same, it's only the viewers point of observation that changes. Anti-clockwise spin when viewed from the southern hemisphere, appears as a clockwise spin when viewed from the northern hemisphere.
And guess what, vice versa applies regardless of the spin direction. Think about it, devise a simple test for yourself using you eyeline as the 'equator', test it for yourself, and prove to yourself it's simply your view perspective that 'changes' the direction, not the direction of spin suddenly stopping at the equator, and then miraculously reversing itself. Paul Nankervis, Perth Australia I've studied this with many different tubs, kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks for many many hours with over a hundred tests and I concluded that what hemisphere you're in has nothing to do with the direction of the spin.
Joe Vortex, Montreal, Canada This is a common myth, and the previous comments settle it quite well. I only wish to add that the size or distance needed for Coriolis to have an noticeable effect is 10kms Natassia Day, Perth, Australia Having read most of the above I am thinking of how to exploit this feature.
My current interest is in making, as a hobby, a water wheel electric power generator. There are of course hundreds of examples, the one that interests me is a backpack model, a tube to be inserted into a flow of water and to produce campsite lighting.
My version could be called the Downunder increasing pitch screw turbine. The downunder because I am in the southern hemisphere and of course the water flows opposite that of the northern types, it looks like that idea is a no go. The whole thing, alternator and all about 3 ft long and 6 inches in diameter, it would be contained with ropes tied to trees, rocks, a bridge or whatever.
I then went immediately upstairs and flushed that toilet and it went clockwise. My downstairs and upstairs are in the same hemisphere. Why did they not rotate in the same direction?
Why doesn't the bath water spin increasingly fast in the first place if left to sit for days? I'm with the "Definitely has an effect, but it's probably of mathematically insignificant magnitude when compared to 'other' factors.
Unless you happen to be a ocean sized lump of atmosphere with nothing else better to do" side. Coriolis force is in effect with this phenomenon. Under strict lab environment, it is always counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.
As a matter of fact, in a random household environment, a high percentage of the results is counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere. But due to other forces such as sink design, initial spin, there are some cases where a small percentage go wrong. So basins were just 2 standard sizes, facilitating a controlled experiment. In 5 of the 7 basins I tested, the direction was anti-c, in the other 2, clockwise. That would strongly support the 'random' opinion, except for the fact that I tested each basin three times, getting the same result on all replications.
I feel this reduces the 'random' case. Btw, lets not make ad hominem comments in our discussions. As an oldie am often accused of Luddism, but blogs like this really do help the world go roind, if I can use the expression!! Mike, Oxford UK The water that goes down the plughole spin counter-clockwise due to the fact that the Earth spins that way.
Glad to be of any help! Drill the screw through a board. Drill it from the top and look at the bottom. If you look from the top it spins right, but looking from the bottom it's backwards. Imagine a screw through Earth and the Sun is the power drill. It's powered by the sun and forced by the Earth's axis. Love, learning and feedback is appreciated.
There is a Coriolis Effect that we can see in the hurricanes and Typhoons that spin in opposite directions. They cannot be sustained crossing the equator because of this Coriolis Force. However, the same force is so weak at the level of the water flowing down your drain, that many other factors overwhelm it. At the scale of the weather, there aren't as many other forces that can match the Coriolis. As a hurricane moves away from the equator, it is often overwhelmed by the Upper Atmosphere Jet Stream winds, but around the equator in open water this force is what is generating the rotation of the rising vapors, which become the hurricane.
When the hurricane moves over the land the uprising vapors diminish and there is more distortion in the other winds, which soon kill the hurricane. Good thing for us land dwellers. Probably just as unlikely as the coriolis effect! Stop talking about it and just try the experiment! It's random! Get your heads out of your toilets, people. Chris Saxby, London Ontario Good grief. Yes — but only if you are extremely careful. The rotation effect of the Coriolis force is so small in the hand basin that it is vastly overshadowed by local effects — such as the direction from which the water entered the container, air effects over the surface, temperature, location of the drain, and so on.
In Professor Ascher H. It was then repeated in by Dr Lloyd M. Trefethen at the University of Sydney. Shapiro used a shallow round dish — 2m across and mm deep. The outlet hole was in the dead centre and about 9mm across.
He added the water through a hose, covered it with a plastic sheet and let it sit for 24 hours, before releasing the stopper plug from below. The water took 20 minutes to drain out, with no visible rotation for the first minutes. Then the water began to spin anti-clockwise — slowly at first, then gradually increasing to one rotation every four seconds by the end.
The University of Sydney team used very similar equipment, and got consistent clockwise rotations. I get a lovely Zen feeling, knowing that the spin patterns on each side of the equator are so nicely balanced. Here, Dr Karl explains the number one problem facing our Great Barrier Reef: coral bleaching caused by climate change. Close Menu. Facebook Twitter Instagram Instagram Adventure.
Later works, penned after Europeans stumbled across Australia and New Zealand, kept the tradition alive. The idea that water swirls down a drain in a different direction in the Southern Hemisphere smacks a bit of this fanciful notion, but it is in fact based on a scientific principle known as the Coriolis effect. The problem arises when we try to transfer that tempest to a teacup. The Coriolis effect is so weak that it simply cannot measure up to the forces at play in a toilet, tub or sink, where the shape of the container and the effects of residual currents — which can persist for up to a day after filling — tend to dominate.
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