[Offtopic] 'Water down the plughole' international experiment

[victor rajewski]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 9:43 AM, Bill Oldham <billo at kew.hotkey.net.au> wrote:
> Just a thought – could this be done by watching the direction of a toilet
> being flushed? Save water, save energy, but not exactly green.

In an American-style toilet, perhaps, but Aussie toilets work on a
different principle, so no. US (and Japanese toilets) fill the entire
toilet bowl with clean water before you do your business, and the act
of flushing drains the contents of the bowl away, then re-fills it (in
Japan most toilets have a hand-washing tap above the cistern that
turns on as you flush, so the water you just used to wash your hands
ends up in the toilet bowl - brilliant!). So there is the possibility
to study the Coriolis effect with these types of toilets. But the
Aussie/European style loos dump a heap of water from the cistern into
the bowl, but it drains away as fast as it enters, leaving no build-up
and drain-away of water.

There's a Simpsons episode about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_vs._Australia (likely the original
impetus of this experiment?)

Phew; lucky we're on the off-topic list!

vik