Siphons Work Due To Gravity, Not Atmospheric Pressure: Now With Peer Review 360
knwny (2940129) writes "Peeved by the widespread misconception that siphons work because of atmospheric pressure, physics lecturer Dr. Stephen Hughes, [in 2010] wrote a mail to the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary(OED) pointing out the error. To back his claim, Dr.Hughes tested a siphon inside a hypobaric chamber to check if changes in atmospheric pressure had any effect on the siphon and demonstrated that gravity and not atmospheric pressure was the driving principle. [This week, the] paper detailing his experiment was published in Nature. The OED spokesperson responded saying that his suggestions would be taken into account during the next rewrite."
Gravity! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually it's both. (Score:5, Funny)
>A straw with a hole in it cannot siphon.
A straw has two holes in it.
A straw with only one hole can't siphon.
oh man (Score:5, Funny)
that sucks!
Re:wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Pessimism.
Re:oh man (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Actually it's both. (Score:4, Funny)
It is not theoretically stable, but in practice it is.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.