Why and how are whirlpools created/formed? (Small or Big)

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Why and how are whirlpools created/formed? (Small or Big)

In: Physics

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine it like this.

Water wants to move downward. This is gravity in action. It wants to go as far down as possible, until something gets in the way of it going down.

So, imagine the water finds a hole to travel down. But, there’s air in the way down there. Air wants to go up. This is because it’s very much less dense and so gravity has a far less strong hold on air, so it goes up.

With air below and water above, the two are getting in the way of each other. At first, air will force its way up in the form of air bubbles, displacing the water until it reaches the surface of that water and returns to the greater atmosphere.

But, eventually, the air going up will form a pathway down, while the water going down forms a pathway going down, with the two sliding past each other. This is efficiency in nature.

Tornadoes are the result of the same thing.

You have a layer of hot air beneath a layer of cold air. The cold air wants to fall, and the hot air wants to rise up. Eventually the collide and then form a funnel that allows the hot air to rush upward while the cold air falls downward.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I believe whirlpools are produced by harmonic eddy currents. I hope someone else can give more explanation than that because I, too, want to know!