Saturday, December 06, 2008

Equatorial Experiments


Shortly after arriving to Quito, my second cousin Xavier Donoso took me to see the monument called "La Mitad del Mundo" - Half of the world - erected in honour of the 19th century french expedition that established the location of the equatorial line. Around this monument, a number of small museums and exhibitions have been installed, mainly about Ecuador and the equator. However, some years ago, the US Navy conducted GPS measurements on the site and concluded that the line is not exactly where the monument was built but actually some 100 m further north. So, a clever gentleman purchased a bit of land where the real line passes, painted the stretch and is now conducting experiments for curious tourists, on and beside the equator.
One experiment deals with the direction in which water swirls. First, the guide put a sink right over the equator, poured water in it and pulled the plug. The water was drawn to the hole in a straight fashion, it didn´t swirl at all.
Next, the recipient was moved one meter to the south. Here, with the same procedure, and adding some small leaves to show the direction of the water, the water swirled clockw
ise. Repeating the same thing on the north side gave a counter-clockwise swirl! All the tourists and myself were witnesses of this.
The guide proceeded to show that our resistance is less on the
 equator. She asked for the strongest man of the group to lock his hands high and she would try to lower his hands. One meter to the north of the line, she had no way of pulling them down. Then, she asked the man to stand on the painted  line and again hold his hands locked high. This time, she would only use one hand. Effortlessly, she pressed his hands down, to the great surprise of the man and the group. Me and Xavier also tried this out, and the effect was the same.
The third thing was to try to walk heel-to-toe with your eyes shut. This proved incredibly difficult walking on the line. Apparently, there is a lateral force missing on the line, which confuses the brain.
Now, do you believe this?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know what to believe my friend!!!! Sounds incredible :-D But I'll take your word for that it happened!!! WOW what else is there to say? It's gonna be great to listen to you telling these stories when you get back :-)))) Ha det så superbra Gabriel, jättekul att du redan börjat blogga så att man kan hänga med på resan liksom hiihihi

Många kramisar hannah xxx