I was under the impression that it was the earth moving below the pendulum. Interesting.

That's what makes atom bombs work.

In layman's terms, what actually happens is that part of the atom is converted from matter into energy according the good old E=MC^2 equation.

That website is amazing. Those formulas are crazy! How one comes up with such formulas bewilders me and that was over 200 years ago.

Well it is fascinating indeed.

One of the reasons for this design (according to a plumber friend) is that the "swirling" motion of the water helps avoid clogs by "keeping things moving".

Note mass is not part of the Coriolis equation but angular acceleration is. There is no difference between a mass of water falling towards the hole of a toilet and a mass of iron falling towards the center of the Earth but restrained by a string. Angular acceleration works on both. Mass is not a factor.

Okay, I thought the atom was just "split" but I guess if it blows up you can say it has been "destroyed."

I wonder how such a tiny quanta could cause such a huge explosion.

The theory of the big bang states that the energy at the beginning of the explosion was too concentrated for matter to exist. A few fractions (very small fractions) of a second later the energy expanded and cooled to the point where subatomic particles could form and continued to expand and cool til the basic parts of atoms could form. The gamma ray bursts are the closest thing to a big bang around and the flux of energy near or at the event horizon has too high an energy density for normal matter to exist. The relativistic effects of time/space being stretched cause a shock wave front to occur which exchanges matter for energy and eventually results in the release of a large amount of gamma rays which were formally matter.

One of the more interesting aspects of black hole formation / gamma ray bursts is that they are like a giant atom smasher and give much of the same information we attempt to verify at places like Fermilab and Cern.

I ain't no physicist, but I think you need a warped mind to be able to imagine warped space.

Warped is what warped imagines.

I think I might qualify.

I resemble that remark.

DNA's double helix structure was an enigma, until the scientist trying to figure it out took some lsd. Then the double spiral ladder made sense all of a sudden. I'm also pretty warped. Normal scares me.

When I am dreaming, no matter how ridiculous the dream is, it always makes perfect sense.

Well, using meters-per-second as a measure of speed, C^2 (the speed of light squared) is something like 10,000,000,000,000. It doesn't take much M (mass) to multiply that up to a huge amount of E (energy).

And yes, the atoms do "split". But during the process of splitting, at least one of the approximately 400 "pieces" of the atom (electrons, neutrons, protons) is converted directly into energy (it's mass multiplied by 10,000,000,000,000). The rest of the pieces just become smaller atoms.

The amount of mass that actually gets convered into energy in an atomic bomb blast, is quite small. I don't really know the exact figure, but seem I recall reading somewhere that it could be measure in milligrams.

A hypernova causing a gamma ray burst by collapsing into a black hole releases 10 to the 54 power ergs of energy.

Always wondered how an much energy an "erg" represented in everyday human experience.

It took a while, but I think I've got a good example now. This is not exact, but gives a general idea of the "order of magnitude".

An "erg" is approximately the amount of enery required to move a marble a couple inches in one second.

Not a lot by itself, but add 54 zeros to the right of that and it becomes virtually incomprehensible on a human scale.

Thanks, Metalwing, for the inspiration to finally look that up.

there is a lot of energy in the interatomic structure

the atoms of your feet and the atoms of the ground are spaced far enough that they could easily slip in between each other and let you sink into the earth

but the interatomic force is strong enough to prevent it. no matter how heavy you are

sorry guys but nothing proven here. yes, coriolis affect does influence SOME fluids in the northern hemisphere in a cyclonic motion
one hundred percent of the time and in an anticyclonic motion in the southern hemisphere but all fluids do not adhere to this rule. several experiments have been done using perfectly stable water on perfectly stable platforms that have produced whirlpools in either direction in either hemisphere. as a sailplane pilot i have spent alot of time looking for thermals, a rising colum of warm air. one telltale sign of a thermal is a dust devil or small tornado that develops on the ground at the base of a thermal. these dust devils rotate in both directions about equally. the same is true of large tornados. most tornados begin their rotation as a horizontal "tube" of air. depending on which end of the "tube" decends from the cloud determines which direction it will spin. but it is true that some airmasses such as movements around high or low pressure area are indeed affected by friction and the earth's rotation or coriolis affect one hundred percent of the time. at least so far.

Dust devils and tornadoes have nothing to do it. They are caused by wind shear which can and do occur in any direction. It is the same as choosing which way to stir your coffee. Coriolius affects isolated systems in freefall either towards or away from the Earth's center of gravity such as high pressure or low pressure air masses which are defined as high or low depending on clockwise or counterclockwise rotation. It's in the book, "Aviation Weather".

I had to look that one up. I've been around and in tornados all my life and it never occured to me to wonder which direction they spin



Tornadoes normally rotate cyclonically in direction (counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, clockwise in the southern). While large-scale storms always rotate cyclonically due to the Coriolis effect, thunderstorms and tornadoes are so small that the direct influence of the Coriolis effect is inconsequential, as indicated by their large Rossby numbers. Supercells and tornadoes rotate cyclonically in numerical simulations even when the Coriolis effect is neglected.[32][33] Low-level mesocyclones and tornadoes owe their rotation to complex processes within the supercell and ambient environment.[34]

Approximately 1% of tornadoes rotate in an anticyclonic direction. Typically, only landspouts and gustnadoes rotate anticyclonically, and usually only those which form on the anticyclonic shear side of the descending rear flank downdraft in a cyclonic supercell.[35] However, on rare occasions, anticyclonic tornadoes form in association with the mesoanticyclone of an anticyclonic supercell, in the same manner as the typical cyclonic tornado, or as a companion tornado—either as a satellite tornado or associated with anticyclonic eddies within a supercell

-wiki

I do know that tornados always travel southwest to northeast. admittedly they do it on a wandering path but the overall direction is alway to the northeast (a handy fact to know if you try to run around one ((never rin from a tornado, run around it))

If what you say is true, here is the question: What then determines the direction of the swirl when experiments have been done using perfectly stable water on perfectly stable platforms and who did these experiments? Do you have a link or reference? Where did you acquire this information? If I am to seriously evaluate information I like to know its source. The reason is because I have conflicting evidence and I they are canceling each other out.