Friday, July 11, 2014

The day the clock stood still and we turned the women's bathroom into a marine lab!

First, a little bit about me, my name is Jean-Paul Serrano and I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. After high school I joined the Navy as a brown water sailor (river/harbor patrols) and ended my service in 2013. I am very interested in sustainable living and conservation science.

The debate on whether water flowing down a drain spin different in North and South hemisphere has been one question that humanity as been dying to solve. The wait is over. I have the answer... Both, neither, purple. The swirl on the sink is affected by the Coriolis Effect which is a phenomenon that causes fluids, like water and air, to curve as they travel across or above Earth's surface. Here is a video to explain that awesome craziness:


While there is scientific fact concerning the spin of a swirl, Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, one can not make a conclusion about whether it is one or the other because of all the variations in sinks, tubs, and toilets that may effect that spin. If you do the experiment with multiple sinks you'll discover that they vary. While this does not debunk the Coriolis Effect (phenomenon in which the rotation of the earth can cause things moving in a straight line to appear to follow a curving path, for those who didn't view the video), in the end it is all random except when describing large scale water motions across the rotating earth. 

In conclusion, yes and no.

Sources: NOVA PBS youtube (http://youtu.be/i2mec3vgeaI), Huffington Post (http://tinyurl.com/arug9hw), and field research done by me here in the USA and a friend in Australia via skype.

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