Water Down the Sink?
Needed:
A sink (the rounder, the better), water to put in it, and a trip around the world.
What to do:
Fill the sink with water. Pull out the plug and watch which way the water goes down.
What Happens?
In the southern hemisphere it should go down clockwise, and in the north it should go down anti-clockwise. (Any variations in the sink may cause this not to work, like an uneven sink).
Why is it so?
Due to the rotation of the earth high and low pressure systems rotate oppositely in the north and south hemispheres. That is why cyclones (sothern hemisphere) and typhoons or hurricanes (northern hemisphere) rotate in different directions. I checked this on a trip to Japan and it worked!
The simple answer is the Nothern Hemisphere spins in a different direction than the Southern Hemisphere. The Northern Hemisphere is spinning anti-clockwise, and the Southern Hemisphere is spinning clockwise. Use a basketball to visualize it if you like. Slowly spin it in your hands and look at it from the top and bottom.
The more complicated explanation for this is a thing called the Coriolis effect, named after French scientist, Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis. I don't have room or time to explain it here, but if you want to know about, look it up in an encyclopaedia or if you are in Australia, take a look at the December '96/January '97 edition of The Helix, the Double Helix science club magazine.
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