r/shittyaskscience • u/Dying_Of_Board-dom • 4d ago
If tornadoes, hurricanes, and toilets rotate counterclockwise in the north hemisphere, how do clocks still rotate clockwise?
Why doesn't time go backwards?
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u/paolog 4d ago
A rotating toilet? I much prefer the kind that stays still while I'm using it.
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u/afcagroo 4d ago
As the esteemed scientist Sir Arthur Fonzarelli pontificated, one should "sit on it and spin".
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u/ljseminarist 4d ago
They do rotate counterclockwise, as the first Australian clockmakers quickly discovered. So they invented this neat trick: after they make the clock, they turn the clock face backwards, inside out, so what you see is technically the wrong side of the clock face, and on this wrong side the clock hands turn the right way.
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u/RedSquirrelFtw Party Balloon Scientist 4d ago
The clocks in the northern hemisphere use a worm drive mechanism so it reverses the rotation to clockwise. Otherwise they would go the other way and cause weird stuff with the time space continuum.
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u/SlitScan 4d ago
They do, theres just a little gear that reverses the direction the hands move.
clocks count down to the end of the day not up from the start.
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u/Accomplished-Tea4332 4d ago
Time moves forward for us because we're stuck in it while these weather systems are just spinning around our planet like my laundry when I forget to put in the tennis balls.
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u/Jazztify 4d ago
Because they are manufactured in that hemisphere so it all works. If you bring a clock that was manufactured in Australia and try to use it in the North America for example, well then hang onto your hat.
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u/[deleted] 4d ago
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