JorgeR,
I went to the site you posted. I understand what they said. They did not offer any logical argument as to why the claim is false. They simply said it is false.
I then followed the link at the bottom of that page to the "bad coriolis" site. They went on to say that there is a procedure (much like the one I described earlier) which will indeed show the coriolis-effect. However, they throw in this word "cyclonic" to indicate, according to them, that the water spins in the same direction that the world does (What the heck does
that mean???). They also said that the water spins "clockwise" in the Northern Hemisphere and "counter-clockwise" down-under. Now I feel very strongly that I don't believe them.
A little more searching found the following paper...
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/843323324.Ph.r.html
In this paper there is mention of an
"A. H. Shapiro, a physicist at Mississipi's Technology Institute". He has purportedly taken the question seriously and performed experiments to detect the effect. According to the paper, he found them... consistently. His results, much to my surprise, found that the tub drained "counter-clockwise" in the northern hemisphere.
The test was also reproduced by
"Five scientists at Sydney University (Scientific American, Nov. 1965 page 54)." They found the complimentary result... "clockwise".
At this point, I'm glad that someone is "looking". However, I'm disappointed in the direction results.
If these results truly reflect the coriolis-effect, then why weren't the results in Mississippi similar to the larger effect in the ocean currents in the North Atlantic and North Pacific? Likewise for the Aussies... why weren't their results similar to the larger effect on the South Pacific and South Atlantic?
I can absolutely "see" and understand how the ocean currents come to be as they are. Granted, a bathtub is a mighty damned small ocean... but the causal factor should be the same... shouldn't it?
Wouldn't there be time for the effect to occur if the drain was very small?
The bathtub water will gain velocity because it really is draining through a "vortex". That I understand. But, why the contrary results in direction???
BTW... "Eats, shoots and Leaves"... isn't that the joke about the Panda Bear in the Old-West saloon?
Two guys are having an MGD at the bar in a saloon. A Panda walks into the saloon. He sits down at a table and orders a steak sandwich. When the Panda is done eating he stands up and carefully looks the place over. He eyes one of the guys at the bar and then he pulls out his gun and shoots him. The Panda then beats a hasty retreat through the swinging doors.
The other guy at the bar jumps up and yells, Hey! What in the hell was that???
The bartender says, Oh, that's just our local Panda. He always
"eats, shoots and leaves".