Here’s how to watch a tornado safely

Tornados and whirlpools in nature are destructive. But we can observe them safely inside a bottle

What you need:

 A one-litre plastic bottle, a tab, a stopwatch

 What to do:

1. Uncap the bottle. Fill it almost to the top with water.

2. Clamp the mouth of the bottle with your hand and turn it upside down. Hold it over the tub.

3. Now, let go of the mouth of the bottle. Measure the time it takes for all the water to empty out into the tub.

4 Restart the experiment. Fill the water from the tub back into the bottle. Clamp down the mouth and invert it over the tub.

 5. Now, slowly, start moving the whole thing in a clockwise or anticlockwise circle. Keep doing this until you see a tornado forming inside the bottle.

 6. Leave the mouth open and time the water flowing out into the tub.

What happens

When you invert the bottle without swirling it, water slowly falls into the tub below.

But when you start moving the bottle in a circle, a tornado forms and all the water quickly empties into the tub below. The time taken in this case is far lesser Why?

If you don’t swirl the bottle, there’s a glug- glug sound as the water slowly falls into the tub below. This sound happens because air and water have to take turn passing through the bottles mouth. Air from the outside passes into the bottle to fill it and water from the bottle passes out.

But when you swirl the bottle and make the tomato, you allow the air and water t simultaneously pass through the bottles mouth How? The centre of the tornado is a hole, as it is in the form of a spiral or a vortex. This centre sucks air in and the waiter moves around it. Then the water falls into the tub below thanks to gravity. The process of emptying out of the bottle is much faster when the air and water move like this together. That’s the beauty of the vortex.

Picture Credit : Google

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