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From: anand@utastro.UUCP (Anand Sivaramakrishnan)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Wild ride and Drano
Message-ID: <179@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 10:41:32 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.179
Posted: Mon Dec 16 10:41:32 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Dec-85 05:57:47 EST
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 12
Keywords: Plumbing, slip-joint wrenches, pipe compound, washers


It's more a matter of plumbing and bath geometry.  Drainpipe
asymmetry causes any particular bath to prefer to swirl one way
even if the drain is symmetrically placed in the bath.

I have discovered that plumbing is often the root cause
of many mysterious physical phenomena ( :-) ).

Of course, there is the selection effect here that the places
on the Earth where the whirlpool effect is most noticeable are
exactly those places where baths freeze over before draining:
i.e. the North and South Poles.