***Mostly OT*** Coriolus/Coriolis (sp.?) effect
Eddie and all,
Trying to observe the coriolus effect in a toilet bowl
is like trying to observe earnings effects in a panic
bear market.
You might, just maybe, get to see the effect if you
get people to fill their kitchen sinks with water, let
it stand until it's very still, and then let it drain.
Even there, though, a nearly microscopic change of
initial conditions, such as a little movement of your
hand as you reach in and open the drain, can easily
overpower the effect. There just isn't that much of
a distance between the northern end and the southern
end of your sink.
The most easily-observed illustration of the coriolus
effect is in the weather patterns on The Weather
Channel. By-and-large, the storm systems in the
Northern Hemisphere swirl counterclockwise, and
the ones in the Southern Hemisphere swirl clockwise,
though even there you can get a maverick now and then,
and the patterns right near the Equator tend more
toward the chaotic or random.
Like the effect of earnings growth on the price of a
stock, the coriolus effect is a mild background effect,
but over a large time and space, its power is ineluctable.
Cheers, Tom (long IOM)
P.S. If Gary W.'s expertise comes from his Penn/Wharton exposure,
then I guess the content of this post comes from my being
a Caltech/Penn hybrid. <g>
P.P.S. to E. Graphs: Take it out of the toilet, and it magically
transforms from sickness to science. We're not sick. We're geeks. <g> |
