A popular notion, but the Coriolus Effect is not strong enough at toilet scale to influence the direction of swirling.
I should have included some kind of emoticon. I wasn’t serious. There are funny YouTubes of locals on the Kenyan equator showing tourists how a pan of water will swirl one way, and then walk south ten feet and show how it swirls the other way.
I’m hoping someone who knows more about wind and currents will write about how those would be changed. I imagine that would change some climates and weathering of land.
I can’t be the only one who knew you were joking. No emoticon was necessary.
Wow…Thank You! I think this is it! I didn’t think so until the last few sentences and the ending rang a bell!
This is pure awesomeness!!
Considering that this is an extremely common bit of misinformation, the default assumption would be that someone had posted it seriously. There are lots of articles debunking this idea, ranging from Scientific American to Uncle Cecil, which wouldn’t be necessary if many people didn’t believe it. In fact, there are few things so wrong and ignorant that someone hasn’t posted on the board. So if you are deliberately going to post misinformation in General Questions as a joke, it’s always a good idea to include a emoticon.
Actually, you were misinformed on the subject at one point.
Good grief. You missed the joke dude. Get over yourself. :rolleyes:
Moderating
OK, I’m going to speak on this as a moderator, since it is a pet peeve of mine. You seem to have entirely missed my point. This is not about “missing a joke,” this is about the proper response to posting misinformation in General Questions.
Misinformation shouldn’t be posted in General Questions even as a joke, unless you clearly indicate it is a joke. The default presumption in General Questions is that information is posted in good faith, and as such should be taken at face value. If misinformation is posted, it should be corrected, even if the original poster knew it wasn’t correct. While you might realize the information is wrong, others may not. So correcting it is always the proper thing to do.
Now sometimes a response is so preposterous that it can’t be taken seriously. K364’s was not such a case. It is a very common misconception, and there was no indication that it was made in jest. (To his credit, he has apologized and acknowledged that he should have included an emoticon). It shouldn’t be allowed to stand even if it were a joke. DSYoungEsq was entirely right to provide the correct information.
In such a case, you don’t indicate your cleverness by mocking another poster by posting a “Whoosh.” Instead you’re being kind of jerkish. I would prefer that people not do this. (I’ll acknowledge that I might have done this on some occasion in the past, but it’s not really good form in GQ.)
So:
-Please don’t post misinformation in GQ even as a joke, unless it is completely clear that it is a joke. When in doubt include an emoticon or other indication you are joking.
-If someone makes a good faith correction of misinformation, don’t just post “Whoosh,” which in GQ is rude and obnoxious. You may politely indicate that you believed the original poster to have been joking.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Among the climate changes of interest, no gulf stream, suggesting northern Europe and Iceland would be much colder than they are today.
Assuming that our orbit around the sun wouldn’t change, the length of the sidereal day would increase by eight minutes (I think).
I’m still trying to think through how this would affect which stars are visible in which seasons. As it is, we see stars in the east, on any given night, rising four minutes earlier than they did the night before. I can’t quite thought through how this would work if the rotation were reversed. At any given midnight though the year the stars overhead ought to be about the same as they are in reality, given that the Earth would still be in the same position relative to the sun and the celestial sphere. But if the sidereal day is eight minutes longer, how would that work?
*Sidereal day=the time it takes for the earth to complete a rotation with respect to the background stars or celestial sphere.
The sidereal day would be unchanged at 23 hours and 56 minutes. As I mentioned in post #9, the solar day would be 8 minutes shorter (23 hours and 52 minutes instead of 24 hours). This would result in two extra days per year 367.25.
Show yer math, or NO HOTCAKES FOR YOU!
Here is the math. Draw a picture to convince yourself.
If the Earth rotates N times relative to the stars every time it goes around the Sun once, the Sun will rise and set N-1 times if the Earth’s rotation is in the same direction as it’s revolution. It will rise and set N+1 times if the Earth’s rotation is in the opposite direction. You can convince yourself of this by considering the N=1 case, in which the Earth is rotating once a year relative to the stars. In this case, if the rotation is in the same direction as the revolution, the same side of the Earth will always be facing the Sun. The Sun will be in a fixed position in the sky (almost) and will never set or rise. Thus, the number of Solar days (days relative to the Sun) will be zero and the number of sidereal days (days relative to the stars) will be one. If the Earth is not rotating at all (N=1), the number of solar days will be one. If the Earth is spinning in the opposite direction once per year, the Sun will rise and set two times (once for the Earth going around the Sun and one extra time for Earth rotating once).
In the real case, the Earth rotates approximately N=366.25 times every year relative to the stars, or N-1 = 365.25 days relative to the Sun. Thus, a single rotation of the Earth relative to the stars is just a little bit less than a day. Less by one day divided by 366.25, which is about 3.9 minutes. So the sidereal day is 23 hours and 56 minutes, while the solar day is 24 hours. If the Earth is spinning the other way, the number of solar days is one more than the number of sidereal days, or 367.25 and the solar day is 23 hours and 52 minutes, 8 minutes shorter than the real solar day.
Britain would have a similar climate to Newfoundland. Seattle would get New York winters, and vice versa.
Point taken.