Re: Toilet bowl physics ???

[inet@intellisys.net (brian whatcott)]

(Second try at sending this...)

At 08:59 AM 5/14/97 EDT, LUDWIK KOWALSKI wrote:
> I use an electric shaver (Philips) and empty it at once by throwing the 
> pieces of hair into a standard white porcelaine toilet bowl (from an 
> elevation of about one meter).... their initial 
> floating distribution is nearly uniform. But then they start clustering 
> into "galaxies of short hairs". The overall picture after about ten or
> twnty minutes is quite different from what it was at the beginning. The 
> clustering seems to be faster near the rim where the bowl is shallower. 
> The grouping of hairs (about 0.5 to 1 mm long) is not total but some 
> tendency seems to be present. Or am I am expecting too much from 
> randomness?
>                                              Ludwik Kowalski
The classical explanation invokes a 'force' which attracts the stubble 
according to its mass.
 The more modern interpretation is that isolated masses of this kind distort 
space, in rather the way an elastic membrane would be distorted - so as to 
provide a natural clustering effect without any force mechanism.

Regards
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK