Before I trigger an avalanche of bemused comments, yes, I’ve changed the blog’s title. And no, I haven’t gone – completely – insane. I wanted something that would sound odd and yet compelling. So I used two of my favorite words, twisted them a little and… Voilà!
Ok, here’s the rationale behind it:
- Anachronism: a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place (me).
- Coriolis effect: the apparent deflection of a moving object that is a result of the earth’s rotation (to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere, as we all know).
- Synthesis: a person that is chronologically out of place and apparently deflected off an initial trajectory. Or by extension, any blog entry posted by said person and thus exhibiting the same inherent characteristics.
Note: the Coriolis effect, as theories of Quantum physics do, supposes the presence of an observer. It is not an actual force and the object itself never deviates from its path through space. But the observer is standing on earth and gets fooled by the planet’s rotation. In other words, observers arrive with their own baggage and introduce their own flaw in the equation by believing what they see.
Blog readers ye be warned! All who wander are not lost. All who seem to deviate do not.
« apart from you, is there an exemple of the coriolis effect you can give us ?
Date of comment: 2006-03-06 18:23 •Is the water going down the bath drain
obeying the same law ? »
« Hehe, I can see someone’s done their homework...
Date of comment: 2006-03-06 21:45 •Well, indeed (in theory) the water down the drain should obey the effect (and hence drain counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.)
The problem with a water drain is that it’s a micro-system. The Coriolis effect applies mostly to macro-systems like the weather, and it is very subdued.
In the sink example, there are too many variables that will have a greater influence on the rotation than Coriolis does; shape of the sink, initial disturbances, etc... But I read somewhere that if the system was perfect (no water movement prior to draining, no disturbance caused by opening the drain, etc.) it should work. »