emh@bonnie.UUCP (Edward M. Hummel) (12/14/84)
<> All of the banter about Archimedes and floating 100,000 ton ships in a cup of water reminds me of a couple of old favorites: 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different levels? 2)Why are there usually two high tides per day? After all, the moon is only on one side of the earth. ------------------------------------------------------------- I apologize if these are too well known. e hummel
rcb@rti-sel.UUCP (12/18/84)
> > 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different > levels? > Who said they are at different levels. Randy Buckland Research Triangle Institute ...!mcnc!rti-sel!rcb
emh@bonnie.UUCP (Edward M. Hummel) (12/20/84)
>> >> 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different >> levels? >> > > Who said they are at different levels. > The water levels at the two end of the Panama canal sometimes differ by more than a foot! (Locks and all that)
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (12/22/84)
> > > 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different > > > levels? > > Who said they are at different levels? > The water levels at the two ends of the Panama Canal > sometimes differ by more than a foot! (Locks and all that) This is silly. Naturally the surface of the ocean isn't at the same level everywhere -- there are tides, for one thing! And then there's weather: a low pressure area causes the water level to rise locally, which is one reason hurricanes are destructive to coastal areas. But these effects aren't going to respect anything like the artificial boundary line across the Drake Passage separating the Atlantic and Pacific parts of the ONE ocean on the planet! The meaning might have been just that the average levels *at the two ends of the Panama Canal* are different, though the "sometimes" suggests otherwise. I'd think that an effect as small as about a foot could easily be explained by ocean currents interacting with the coasts. Mark Brader
rcb@rti-sel.UUCP (12/26/84)
> >> > >> 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different > >> levels? > >> > > > > Who said they are at different levels. > > > The water levels at the two end of the Panama canal > sometimes differ by more than a foot! (Locks and all that) I was under the impression that the locks were used to raise the ship up to the level a lake that cuts through most of the entire width of the canal area. The ship was then lowered back to the level of the pacific. This was simpler than dredging the entire length of the existing lake. Example: | | | | |--|------------------------------------| | | | | | ----------------| | |--|----------------- Randy Buckland Research Triangle Institute ...!mcnc!rti-sel!rcb
gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) (12/26/84)
> > 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different levels? > > Who said they are at different levels. Why do you think the Panama canal has locks?? (Please, no puns about "to keep it from getting stolen".)
hammond@petrus.UUCP (01/02/85)
> > 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different > levels? The earth rotates and the water piles up on the edge of the Americas on one side and pulls away on the other. The gaps at the Horn and the Artic ocean aren't close enough to Panama to reduce the difference completely, so an imbalance persists (because of the earths rotation). If the earth stopped rotating, I would expect the ocean levels to equalize. If I remember properly, the difference is more like 10 feet than 1 foot in order of magnitude (i.e. 4 to 13 foot differences). The tides and local weather conditions may cause fluctuations, but I believe the earths rotation is the fundamental cause of the difference. Rich Hammond (ihnp4!bellcore!hammond)
js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (01/02/85)
Rich Hammond writes: > The earth rotates and the water piles up on the edge of the Americas > on one side and pulls away on the other. The gaps at the Horn and the Why? This would only work if the rate of rotation were changing. (I guess it is, but not enough for the 10 ft. difference asserted.) >Artic ocean aren't close enough to Panama to reduce the difference completely, > so an imbalance persists (because of the earths rotation). If the > earth stopped rotating, I would expect the ocean levels to equalize. If the earth stopped rotating, I would expect the oceans to slop across the continents for awhile first. Very messy. Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
chongo@nsc.UUCP (Landon C. Noll) (01/05/85)
In article <446@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes: >Rich Hammond writes: >> The earth rotates and the water piles up on the edge of the Americas >> on one side and pulls away on the other. ... >> ... If the >> earth stopped rotating, I would expect the ocean levels to equalize. > If the earth stopped rotating, I would expect the oceans to slop across > the continents for awhile first. Very messy. Messy? Perhaps true, but it is one quick way to rinse out all them toxic waste dumps! :-) chongo <oops, sorry> /\==/\ -- Lome tiranar? Ash Urnikx arda! Ash thrakatuluk krimpatul! A chant from the AT&T marketing book <arpox.>
dpw@bonnie.UUCP (David P. Williams) (01/06/85)
Within the last year or so, I have seen a relief map of the world's ocean bottoms produced on the basis of radar altimeter data from a satellite. The rub is that the radar signal could not penetrate the ocean surface! The altitude data from many orbits were combined to produce topographical maps of all ocean surfaces. Then, the shapes of seamounts, shelves, and other features necessary to pile up the overlying water (through gravitational attraction!) were determined. As I recall the distance from peak to trough for the combined ocean surfaces was on the order of 100 feet - the highest point was on a continental shelf and the lowest was in mid ocean. The source of the map was Aviation Week and Space Technology or one of the science mags. So, add to the factors that cause the difference in level between the Atlantic and Pacific at the Panama Canal gravity and the shape of features along the isthmus.
gino@voder.UUCP (Gino Bloch) (01/08/85)
> > > 1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different levels? > > Who said they are at different levels. > Why do you think the Panama canal has locks?? To allow ships to go uphill and downhill, since the isthmus isn't flat. -- Gene E. Bloch (...!nsc!voder!gino) Extend USENET to omicron Ceti.