Why does the water go down the plug in the opposite direction on the other side of the equator??

Answer 1

The Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of a moving object in a rotating frame of reference.

The Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of the Earth is responsible for the precession of a Foucault pendulum and for the direction of rotation of cyclones. In general, the effect deflects objects moving along the surface of the Earth to the right in the Northern hemisphere and to the left in the Southern hemisphere. As a consequence, winds around the center of a cyclone rotate counterclockwise on the northern hemisphere and clockwise on the southern hemisphere. However, contrary to popular opinion, the Coriolis effect is not a determining factor in the rotation of water in toilets or bathtubs (see the draining bathtubs/toilets section below).

The effect is named after Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, a French scientist, who described it in 1835, though the mathematics appeared in the tidal equations of Laplace in 1778.

Answer 2

NO NO NO. It does not. Look in snopes or any other debunking site. For the Coriolis effect to make a difference you would need a drain hundreds of miles wide. If your drain is less than that the effect is nonexistent.

Which way the water swirls depends on how the drain is designed. Move the same one from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern and it would keep going in the same old direction as before the move.

Answer 3

It is all to do with the Gravitational Pull. My husband was brought up on the Equatorial line and as a child he experimented the subject. It was a long time ago, (oops), but he says that if you are right on the Equator, the water goes straight down the plug hole!

Answer 4

Cause the Earth is spinning and cause of the Magnetic Fields makes water go down the drain in different directions depending on where you are at.
No matter where you go, there you are.

Answer 5

The coriolis result which, supposedly controls the 'spin' of the water is way too in risk of have an result on draining water out of your basin. If it spins in any respect that's in elementary words via configuration of the basin it is residing in. In my bathing room basin I truly have said that it regularly spins clockwise, yet in certain situations spins counterclockwise, and not often is going immediately down.

Answer 6

It goes down the same way wherever you are. It is just that if you are in the southern hemisphere you are looking at the plughole from the other side and it seems as if it is going down the other way.

Answer 7

It's a myth - the direction is pretty random and driven partially by chaos theory, fluid dynamics and the size of your big toe

Answer 8

Northern hemisphere - anticlockwise
Southern hemisphere - clockwise

the effects of gravity / magnetism

Answer 9

it's called the coriolus effect and it has to do with how the dominant electromagnetic polarity affects the gravitational pull of the earth

Answer 10

Another urban myth.