Why does toilet bowl water flush clockwise in north & anti-clockwise in the south? What happens on Equator?

Answer 1

The "toilet spin" concept is a popular urban myth that is not actually true. It is usually attributed to the coriolis effect, which is an effect on the motion of air masses that affects weather as a result of the earth's rotation.

But the coriolis effect is not strong enough to affect a mass of water such as the contents of the toilet bowl.

Some toilets manufactured in the USA have a jet nozzle down in the bowl specifically designed to accellerate the spin of the water, so that it will clean off the sides of the bowl more effectively. The last one of that type I saw actually spun the water counterclockwise.

Water going down a drain of any kind goes into a spiral motion simply because as it moves toward the drain it accelerates to a speed that won't allow it to change direction abruptly.

If you will walk around a downtown neighborhood and check out the toilets and sinks in public restrooms, you will see that they are about 50-50 clockwise and counterclockwise.

Watch the surveillance cameras, though. You may be picked up for questioning on suspicion of terrorist activity, subjected to extraordinary rendition, and sent to Syria to be flogged for 72 hours by a crazed Albanian dwarf named Harold, the same to be repeated weekly for 37 years.

In other words, down the toilet. It might be safer to do an internet search on "coriolis effect."

For lots of information on urban legends, try www.snopes.com. They have a section on legends about the coriolis effect.

Have fun. And watch for surveillance cameras anyway.

Answer 2

Toilet Flush Direction

Answer 3

The Coriolanus result creates diverse rotations in the northern and southern hemisphere. It brought about by technique of the rotation of the earth yet is an somewhat small stress while in comparison with gravity. in user-friendly terms in great structures (hurricanes) does it continually prevail. In small structures (tubs, lavatories, and sinks), the drain pipe configuration can exchange the rotation. So no longer all drains in the north hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise and the rotation may be random on the equator.

Answer 4

The answer is: it doesn't.

If you use the equations of motion, it turns out that the non-dimensional number in front of the coriolis term is really small at small scales. This means the Coriolis effect won't be a factor in the rotation of a toilet flush.

The smallest scale rotation that is affected by the Coriolis force is a hurricane (although some people argue the rotation of a thunderstorm is the reason why most tornadoes follow the coriolis force, but not all of them do).

Answer 5

For the same reason that cyclones and hurricanes spin in opposite direction in the different hemispheres. Of course, this assumes that the shape of the toilet bowl doesn't influence the spin in any way (pretty unlikely!) On the equator, there is no influence, and the shape of the bowl controls the spin with no other external influences.

Answer 6

The water in the bowl spins in a direction determined by the geometry of the water jets in the bowl, not by the geography of its location. Someone started this silliness when it was correctly observed that storms in the Southern Hemisphere usually spin in a direction opposite to those in the Northern Hemisphere. This is due to the effect of the Earth's rotation on the direction of winds. But a storm is miles across, not ten inches.

Better you should ask in which direction equatorial storms spin. This I don't know, but I assume that it's whichever way they want.

Answer 7

well it is for the same reasons Hurricanes rotate counter clockwise on NORTHERN hemi and Clockwise in Southern hemi. This is due to Coriolis force which exhibits itself on Rotating systems like Earth. Every moving object on the Surface of the Earth is subject to a force proportional to its speed and acted at toward the right and perpandicular angle to the motion. F=2 w* V where w is the rotational velocity of the Earth and V is the speed of the object. Now this force is of course very small since w is small (2* PI radians /24hrs or ~=2*3.141592/24*60*60).
Planes flying are subject to this force and Pilots have to compensate for it. Even projectiles from a canon are subject to it and must be compensated.
Now whether Toilet follows the same principle can be debated for course. Any water flowing into a hole will need just a slight disturbance to start rotating. Coriolis force might just be that force needed to trigger it.

Answer 8

Nobody knows. That's just the way nature is. As far as living on the equator, most poop just drops straight down into a pit or washes downstream because they don't have running water to flush a commode with, or commodes either, for that matter.

Answer 9

I think mine is going the wrong way.

Do I need to get it fixed or something?

This is a great question.

I had to go flush the toilet to check it out.

It is going clockwise!

I'm so happy!

Answer 10

The toilet water is negligibly affected by the earth's rotation; the direction that the water moves is defined entirely by the jets under the rim, which are angled so as to impose a rotation. If a Kohler toilet is installed in Wisconsin, and the water goes CCW, it will do so if that toilet is exported to Canberra.