Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Spinning in Circles

One of Lillian's favorite things to do is spin in circles. She does it when she's having fun; she does it when she's not. She even does it sometimes when she's upset. She spins in circles when she's in the living room, when she's in the kitchen, when she's in the bathroom [1], when she's in her bedroom. She even does it in her crib sometimes when she's supposed to be taking a nap. But she always seems to spin clockwise. Never counterclockwise.


The question is, would she spin counterclockwise if she were in the Southern Hemisphere? [2]


Notes:

[1] See my post Boing! Boing!

[2] The idea that the Coriolis Effect determines the direction a toilet drains is, of course, false. It is determined by the direction the toilet squirts the flush water. If you look under the lip of the toilet bowl you'll see that there are holes, pointing counterclockwise, that flood the toilet bowl and get it spinning in a uniform direction. Australian and South American toilets are made the same way, so they, too, flush counterclockwise, not clockwise as is popularly supposed. See http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp.

Image attributions:

1 comment:

  1. Soooo cute! Glad things went so great for ya, Love that cake! Aw! SO CUTE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY :)

    - jakaroly.blogspot.com

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