At one point this past weekend we had a heated debate as to whether the water drains in different directions depending on which hemisphere you are in.
The Coriolis Effect was sighted at one point as the contributing factor. After doing a little research online (as I was the only one who knew that this was bogus, but was unable to convince everyone at the time) I found that this is actually the case.... for perfectly circular, symmetric containers water will drain in different directions according to the hemisphere. However no-one's bath/sink/toilet has these characteristics. In everyday life the direction that a container will drain is dictated by other factors such as inherent spin in the water or simply design of the container itself.
The whole tourist attraction (in Kenya I think) where they take you to the southern hemisphere and the water spins one way and in the northern it spins the opposite way is nothing more than a cleverly designed scam - the initial spin is induced in different ways according to which "hemisphere" you are in.
I've included links to sites explaining this in much more detail:
Scientific American,Interesting Thing of the Day and Bad Coriolis
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I think I remember reading somewhere that micro-currents in standing water can have a larger impact on the way that the draining water than the Coriolis effect, and that these currents can be found many hours after the water was agitated in any way
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