Talk:Pole to Pole with Michael Palin

Reshooting
Wasn't there some article in which Palin wrote that after the whole adventure was done, they had to return to the North Pole to re-film that segment? I can't find anything in Palin's book about it. 23skidoo 22:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Significance of the journey
Although the article correctly states that Palin is one of the few people to set foot on both the North and South poles, isn't he also one of the first -- and perhaps only? -- people to do so within a 12-month period? 23skidoo 21:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Coriolis effect
The so-called guide is a charlatan working for tips as he glibly cons busloads of tourists into believing that the rotation of the Earth causes water draining from a container to spin clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. (Yes, you read that correctly, the charlatan fakes it backwards. You would think that if he were going to sucker people, he would at least get his directions the same as what really happens in large weather systems.)

This man’s nonsense was captured (and endorsed) by Michael Palin in this episode. The presentation went as follows:

faker: This is the northern hemisphere (gesturing to his left), and this is the southern hemisphere (gesturing to his right). If you drain a sink when you’re on the northern side of the equator, and you watch the water as it drains, you will see that the water always rotates clockwise [sic]. (Shot of a pan with water draining clockwise. Floating match sticks are used to make the motion easier to see.) This phenomenon is caused by the rotation of the Earth. The effect becomes stronger according to how far you move to the north or to the south and becomes weaker according to how close you go towards the line [the equator]. So that’s why we have to give some distance from the equator so that the rotation can be noticeable.

Palin: This is known as the Coriolis effect and Peter McLeary has given this same lecture every day for the last six years. It’s delivered in the burnt out shell of an old hotel. The equator used to run through the middle of the bar. I bet they were always floating match sticks in the middle of the beer. (The faker has been carrying his pan and water about ten meters to the south of the spot marking the equator, and turns to face the audience.)

faker: So, this changes to counter-clockwise [sic] indicating that now we are on [sic] the southern hemisphere. (Shot of the water in the pan draining counter-clockwise.)

(Transition to a scene where the faker is placing the water-filled pan directly on the equatorial marker.) So, now we are right on the equator, and as we drain the water, you’ll see there will be no rotation. It just drains straight down. And that’s how we prove that we are right on the equator. (Water draining with no apparent rotation.)

Palin: It does work.

Sure it does - in the hands of a scam artist.

But, how is the fraud accomplished? The Coriolis force is so tiny that it cannot cause the rotation in the faker’s draining pan; indeed at only ten meters to either side of the equator, it is so tiny that it could influence neither the carefully performed experiment (described above) nor the large scale motions of weather systems.

If you look carefully, you can see that the fake guide walks off in one direction and spins as he turns around to face the tourists, thus giving a spin to the water. He takes his finger off the bottom and the matchsticks go round clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on the spin the conman gave it!


 * That's a hell of a lot of effort just to dispel a simple myth, does it really mean THAT much to you to prove this wrong that you will go to the lengths of typing out the entire script for the scene? not very NPOV, or relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dark wounds (talk • contribs) 14:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Map
The map of countries visited should show the countries as they were in 1991. It also does not include Greece, as Rhodes was visited. Samhuddy (talk) 20:33, 3 June 2012 (UTC)