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From: meister@linus.UUCP (Phillip W. Servita)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: The wild ride down the drain... (Coriolis force)
Message-ID: <96@linus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Dec-85 10:26:15 EST
Article-I.D.: linus.96
Posted: Mon Dec 23 10:26:15 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 01:39:20 EST
References: <50@decwrl.UUCP> <677@hou2b.UUCP>
Reply-To: meister@linus.UUCP (Phillip W. Servita)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA
Lines: 30

>Contrary to what many have claimed, the coriolis force does exert
>a real influence in determining the direction of spiral down the
>drain.  This fact has been experimentally shown many times.  There
>is a short film I saw in Fluids class or Frosh Physics umpteen years
>ago that recorded one of these experiments.  A large tub was filled
>so that the induced motion would be contrary to the expected motion.
>The tub sat undisturbed for hours.  When a plug was pulled, the water
>eventually spiraled the way expected.  The experiment was repeatable.

I would be more willing to believe this if you could provide me 
with the answer to this: What setup did they use such that they could
"pull the plug" without imparting ANY additional momentum to the fluid 
inside? even if we allowed a "magic plug" which simply vanished at the 
utterance of "Poof!", the slightest imperfection in the drain itself 
would allow Good Old Gravity to impart some initial circulatory momentum
to the fluid which would still outweigh the Coriolis force. And 
of course, this would be repeatable. 

                                      -the venn buddhist


-- 
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"they forcibly extracted the word 'but' from his vocabulary,
 and locked him in a room with 10 economists..."
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                                         -the venn buddhist