Toilets in Australia are different, unless you are at the airport, then they are still the automatic ones which flush before you are even close to being finished. Anyway, regular toilets here have a dual flush circle thingy on the top of the tank. I actually had to google how the smart flush toilet worked, as Christina wouldn’t let me take apart the hotel unit to see how it mechanically functioned on the inside. Once I looked it up, I realized one of the two buttons on the top is supposed to deliver a smaller amount of water, the other button a larger amount, for. . . stuff. I’ve tried both, and can’t tell which is which, and at our hotel (a seedy joint I wouldn’t recommend to college students looking for a hostel). The buttons aren’t marked, so I’ve resorted to pushing both simultaneously, just in case. When looking at the water trap designs in the bottom of the toilet online, I noticed the Australian ones are a lot larger, with a simpler single bend, allowing for easier flushing. The trapway (think size of the pipe leading out of the toilet bowl and heading into the floor) is twice as large. Just speculating, but I’m also guessing the larger, single bend is what allows the snakes and critters we see in pictures and on the news easier access. Maybe not, but I’m still lookin’ before sittin’! P.S. Discussing toilets, as a good engineer, I have to also mention the Coriolis effect. Some misinformation has been nefariously circulated stating that the Coriolis effect works on small objects, like bathtubs and toilets. To set the record straight, it does not, and the spin of a whirlpool is not influenced by the hemisphere it is in. The Coriolis phenomenon is purely due to the velocity delta on the rotational circumference of the earth at different latitudes. A basic example can be described when you are standing at the equator; the earth is spinning you at roughly 1,000 miles an hour. This equates to one revolution a day. If you were to float (not touching the ground) north/south until you neared the pole, ignoring air friction you would still be traveling at 1,000 miles an hour, but because the circumference of the earth is much smaller there, you would be spinning around the pole many times a day, while still traveling at the same speed. So, the cliff notes are the Coriolis effect only takes hold when something spans hundreds of miles of longitude, changing the relative position on the rotational diameter of the earth. Get it? Got it? Good! Animation credit and more information on the toilet debate at Buzzfeed.
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AuthorsGarrett and Christina Lommatsch: An engineer and mathematician move Down Under. Archives
February 2020
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