Why do whirlpools turn opposite south of the equator?
Andy often gives only the first steps of a tough problem, and his readers can add the harder steps as they grow older. But eyen the first steps of this problem are hard for a young brain to grasp, and a simple answer would be wrong. So try your best and leave the rest until later. North of the equator the whirling winds and waters tend to turn right. South of the equator they veer to the left. They must obey nature’s traffic laws for all moving objects, and this problem is tough because two laws are at work. One sends a moving object in a straight path. The other bends its path right or left in the opposite hemispheres. This law is the coriolis effect, and it works because the earth spins toward the east. The ground spins fastest at the equator, and the speed gets slower between the equator and the poles. At the equator it spins at 1000 miles an hour. Exeter is about 2500 miles from the equator, and here the ground spins eastward at only 850 miles an hour. An arrow starts out obeying t
