>>> so if they were in Australia, they would 
>>> be walking to the left I assume.  

>> ...environmentally controlled (Coriolis 
>> effect to Mike's question above)...

> An excellent example of the Coriolis Apis effect.  
> I would expect them to move counter-clockwise 
> in the southern hemisphere.


On the off chance that one or more of the posters above are NOT joking,
please allow a brief explanation.

The Coriolis deflection certainly does cause hurricanes and cyclones to
rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the
Southern Hemisphere.

But these storm systems can be more than 1000 miles in diameter and tend to
exist for several days before forming into a spiral shape.  The weather
channel will show you hurricane systems as they form off the west coast of
Africa, and they take a while to start their spinning.

Everyone always talks about sinks and toilets draining in opposite
directions North and South of the equator, and this is false - a typical
sink is a foot in diameter and drains in a few seconds. On the scale of a
few feet, the Coriolis force is so miniscule as to not even be measurable.
The shape of the sink what motion is imparted to the water when filling
matters far more to the direction of spin.  I fill up passports fairly
regularly, and I can attest to the lack of any consistent North/South
rotation of sinks and toilets.

But what of the shows put on at the equator for the tourists?  
It is an easy little magic trick to perform, and you can do it anywhere, no
need to actually be at the equator.
You need a SQUARE sink with a stopped hole dead center.  
It can have sloped sides or not, it does not matter.

The trick is that you fill the basin with water with your back to the
audience, and then pick up the basin, and turn to either the left or the
right to face the audience to show them the basin before you pull the plug.
When you put the basin down "ON" the equator, you do not pick up the basin
after filling, so the water drains 
Straight down, without any spinning.  The direction you turn starts the
water spinning in the basin enough to assure a good result.  No one notices,
as you turn to give them a better view, or you ask a small child to help you
drop some toothpicks, dye, or corks into the water to show the motion.

But DON'T TELL THE OTHER TOURISTS if you see such a show, as they will be
just as disappointed as beekeepers are when you tell them that crystals,
sugar, and incense won't kill varroa in sufficient numbers to be effective.
People prefer to believe in magic these days.

Also, when you flush the toilet at Karl Marx's birthplace in Trier, near the
Luxembourg border, you hear what sounds like orchestra music.
This is not the Coriolis force, this is, as Marx wrote and Monty Python
quoted, "the violins inherent in the cistern". 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html