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Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: A couple of old Physics puzzles
Message-ID: <228@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Dec-84 02:20:45 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.228
Posted: Sat Dec 22 02:20:45 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 22:21:43 EST
References: <327@bonnie.UUCP> <47@rti-sel.UUCP> <333@bonnie.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Distribution: net
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 18
Summary: This is silly.

> > > 	1)Why are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at different
> > > levels?

> >	Who said they are at different levels?

> 	The water levels at the two ends of the Panama Canal
> sometimes differ by more than a foot! (Locks and all that)

This is silly.  Naturally the surface of the ocean isn't at the same
level everywhere -- there are tides, for one thing!  And then there's
weather: a low pressure area causes the water level to rise locally,
which is one reason hurricanes are destructive to coastal areas.

But these effects aren't going to respect anything like the artificial
boundary line across the Drake Passage separating the Atlantic and
Pacific parts of the ONE ocean on the planet!

The meaning might have been just that the average levels *at the two
ends of the Panama Canal* are different, though the "sometimes" suggests
otherwise.  I'd think that an effect as small as about a foot could
easily be explained by ocean currents interacting with the coasts.

Mark Brader