Toliets

LionHeart · Guest

Toliets flush backwards in New Zealand than th USA Very Happy

turtle7 · Guest

that's b/c in the northern hemisphere water drains counterclockwise and clockwise in the southern. if you're on a boat and watching water going down the drain and you cross the equator, you can watch the water stopping and slowly changing directions.

valmatazz · New Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 22

no thats just how the toilets are built..... trust me my friend lives in new zealand and australia..... its not anythignt o do w/ the equator.

Unclever title · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:44 am Post subject:

No, my friend, both LionHeart and the aptly named turtle 7 are correct. What they are referring to is called the Coreolis effect. It is caused by the Earth's rotation, without this effect water would not spin as it is drained out of something, it would merely trickle out. This same rotation effects weather, balance, and currents in large bodies of water. This effect is so powerful, that on the equinox, when day and night are of equal length in BOTH the north and southern hemispheres, a person can stand an uncooked egg upright, and it will balance that way.

valmatazz · New Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Posts: 22

i know about the coriolis effect, but doesnt that just effect wind? seriously my friend in australia has a toilet and it flushes the ame way up here..... maybe his was purposly forced that way.... but i dont know :-\

Unclever title · Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:26 pm Post subject:

Well, I have no personal experience, just what I was taught in school, and what I saw on Bill Nye the Science Guy, but I do know that I often confuse clockwise and counterslockwise motion, like all the time. So... I don't know.

Riddleman · Site Admin Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 595

thats pretty weird

Unclever title · Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject:

Also, even though air is a gas and water is a liquid, they are technically both fluids, they move in the same way, through currents. One's jus a lot less dense. So that effect would affect both air and water.

Hey I used those two words correctly! YAY!

Uplink_Agent · Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:20 am Post subject:

The way toilets flush is dependent on the shape of the bowl and the direction is drains. The coriolis effect is so small to have any effect

diminuton · New Member Joined: 22 Jul 2006 Posts: 7

Toilets drain due to their shape, the way they're levelled, and by the the way water flows into them or is pulled from them.. those random influences being great enough to overwhelm the slight influence (being over a short period of time/short distance) of the Coriolis force.