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I have enjoyed considering eddies over the years and used the word in a poem a few years back.
However, I only recently learned that eddies are generally circular. Why so? My own visualization of eddies hadn't been of circular ones.
And a second definition that is just great:
"a contrary or circular current (as of thought or policy) " MW
A contrary thought! Contrary thoughts! Contrary policies! Wow! Why haven't I read this word used this way constantly?
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Carpal Tunnel
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what kind of eddies have you seen that aren't generally circular?
realizing that that sentence is leaving things wide open...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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why are eddies (and gyres, for that matter) circular?
mostly because the earth rotates.
this effects prevailing winds, winds act on water currents, and since the oceans are 'closed loops (ie, most of the water in the Atlantic ocean stays in the atlantic ocean, and doesn't flow-- river like--into the pacific ocean or the indian ocean!), when water is moved by the wind NORTH AND EAST by the winds, it can't just flow(somewhere else!) , but a must move in a circular 'path' back to the south and west.
if you have water in a bath tub, you can set up a circular currnent. it isn't self sustaining. earths currents are more or less self sustaining by wind action.
eddies are often located were there are conflicting currents adjecnt to each other, and the eddies are almost like small bearing that take the presure of equalizing the two conflicting flows.
(for reason i don't fully understand,) High tide in the bronx (north end of 'EAST RIVER') is not at the same time as hightide in manhatan (south end of EAST RIVER)--(obviously the east river isn't really a river but a straight!)
Hell Gate is were the two conflicting tides 'meet' --it is marked by strong currents, whirlpools and eddies. the uneven levels of the tidal waters are 'evened out'--messily!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, when traveling on the St. Johns River back in about 1971, we stopped to look into some blue pools that line the St. Johns like little blue arms. We saw eddies of water--water moving back against the general flow of the water--linear rivulets caused by heaven-only-knows-what. Contrary motion. Yes, that's how I think of eddies. But I just hadn't realized that eddies are generally circular. Today I've learned that my own immediate experience of eddies' moving in contrary motion to the general flow had been atypical and that, in fact, eddies are most often circular. I haven't ever seen a circular eddy although I have seen whirlpools caused by drops in water in streams. Are those eddies, too? I doubt it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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huh. I think of eddies as always moving contrari-wise, even if the eddy itself is moving with the flow. and perhaps there's another name for a more linear contrary flow as you've experienced?
formerly known as etaoin...
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I think of eddies as always moving contrari-wise, even if the eddy itself is moving with the flow.
That would be Eddie Haskell.
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Eddie certainly was contrary. Wonder whether that was why he was so named.
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Wonder whether that was why he was so named.
Eddie's full name, on the program, was Edward Clark Haskell. The actor, Ken Osmond, went on to become a motorcycle patrol officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.
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Well, tsuwm, those were certainly eddyfying. The second one wasn't a new release, was it?
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