12-11-2003, 03:41 AM
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#15 (permalink)
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Human
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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Quote:
Originally posted by rsl12
the easiest way to describe it:
imagine two small balls connected to a elastic spring. stretch the balls apart and let go from a height. the two till probably snap back to the center as it goes down.
now imagine that the balls can freely pass through the spring and the other ball, even though they're still connected to the spring! then it drop it. the balls will go to the center, pass through each other, go to the other side, and continue back and forth.
this is the same thing as when you piss. the "spring" is stretched because your peepee hole is not a nice pinhole, but more of a slot. once the liquid exits, surface tension tries to pull the liquid into a nice sphere (but since it's a stream, it ends up trying to pull it into a cylinder). once it reaches something kind of a compact cylinder-shape, momentum makes the liquid continue to move until it distends again, at which point, surface tension once again pulls it all towards the center of the stream. eventually, frictional drag forces cause the stream to lose all of its original energy associated with the shape of your peepee hole and the stream turns into vaguely spherical droplets, the equilibrium state for any small liquid stream being dropped from a height.
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Nice. That's got to be the most clear and concise explanation I've seen  Gracias!
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