I've had a chance to listen to about half of this video. It's refreshing that it's not another depressing account of plastic trash but instead more interesting beach combing, with little mysteries to figure out.
Yes, it's a very interesting video. Beach combing is as old as civilization itself. At least this plastic is being picked up and taken away from the ocean. The problem is the plastic that never washes up, but simply lives in the ocean until it disintegrates and ends up in the food chain.
..... I was intrigued that only left shoes wash up on Texel, right shoes end up in England and Scotland. Also the number of letters in bottles was surprising.
Yes, that left v right shoe thing surprised me as well, as did putting a small amount of pebbles in the bottles so that they'd float vertically rather than horizontally.
....... of course verifying the left shoe claim would be difficult - 100 left shoes may only mean the 100 right shoes have been buried in the sand somewhere, and the Dutch are reknowned for having a good sense of humour.
The left shoe story is beautiful. As I always say, you should never spoil a good story with the truth 😊. There is one shot with rubber gloves on fence poles. You have been there. I remember that you made a picture of it in 2009? Interesting is the phenomenon that weighed bottles go by the current and empty bottles by wind. Recently the beachcombers of Texel had a lot of work to do, because over 200 containers got afloat. It still is a real craft.
LOL! Yes!! In some circumstances never spoil a good story with the truth - I believe the left shoe story implicitly. I thought the rubber glove fence poles looked familiar but assumed this was also a feature of Texel fences - the island I cycled around was Terschelling. I wonder what the 200 containers contained?
The containers contained: packed furniture, folding chairs, automotive parts, clothing, toys, flat screens, LED bulbs and organic peroxide (benzoyl-peroxide), dangerous to name a few.
The phenomena of the left and right shoe was a hype in the 1990s. After a container of Nike Airs had been thrown overboard on the 27th of May 1990 close to Alaska, the left shoes washed up somewhere else than the right ones months later. American oceanographers used these shoes to test their models for ocean currents.
In 2015 it was a question of the national science quiz: A pair of sneakers fall overboard from the ferry between Calais and Dover. Where can you find those shoes most likely?
Correct answer: The left shoe on Texel and the right shoe on the Shetland Islands Explanation: How this goes is partly guessing, but the prevailing idea is as follows. Sneakers float with the soles upwards because there is air in them. The wind has no impact on the shoes; they only float with the current. The water that flows along the shoes changes direction more on the hollow side than on the long side. This creates a force that pushes the shoe in the direction of the long side. With the upside-down left shoe, the long side is on the right, so that the shoe will drift to the right. The right shoe has a mirrored shape and will float to the left with the current. In the northward-facing current in the North Sea, this means that the greatest chance is that the left shoe comes ashore somewhere near Texel, and the right shoe is washed ashore on the Shetland Islands.
Thank you for all that information Ben. I guess all of that makes sense. The shape of anything (in this case shoes) would mean that there would be a tendency to drift one way or the other - Two symmetrical boats one with the rudder turned one way and the other boat with the rudder turned the other way would have a tendency to go in different directions when pushed by ocean currents and the wind. The different symmetries of left and right hand shoes would I guess mirror this rudder effect.
You could test this theory by making say, 1000 completely symmetrical shoes and casting them adrift in the north sea - if equal numbers of shoes (All named Mariner with individual numbers) came ashore on Texel and on English beaches the theory would be proved true and individuals suspicious of subtle Dutch humour would be wrong.
One thing puzzles me though, how does the shoe know in which way to point? A left shoe which turns 180 degrees and points backwards will undergo a force to the left and will end up on the Shetlands. Still a long going practical joke?
Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions. If for example you turn a Jandal (Flip Flops under any other name) up side down it becomes the same shape as its opposite. So an inverted left Jandal would float in the same direction as a right Jandal. [I use the Jandal example first because I have just turned a left Jandle over on the floor next to a right one] before I typed this].
The same would be so for an inverted shoe (an inverted shoe mirrors the shape of its opposite just as the Jandal does). The presumption that shoes would float in the same position that we wear them is of course not proven - it would depend on the shoes centre of gravity.
It also presumes that shoes once capsized by a wave will right themselves again; something that is not proven. Some might say that the only way a capsized shoe could right itself would be if, like a yacht, it had an outside ballast keel.
Yes this perplexing problem deepens and theories are beginning to abound! where will it all end?
12 comments:
I've had a chance to listen to about half of this video. It's refreshing that it's not another depressing account of plastic trash but instead more interesting beach combing, with little mysteries to figure out.
Yes, it's a very interesting video. Beach combing is as old as civilization itself. At least this plastic is being picked up and taken away from the ocean. The problem is the plastic that never washes up, but simply lives in the ocean until it disintegrates and ends up in the food chain.
..... I was intrigued that only left shoes wash up on Texel, right shoes end up in England and Scotland. Also the number of letters in bottles was surprising.
Yes, that left v right shoe thing surprised me as well, as did putting a small amount of pebbles in the bottles so that they'd float vertically rather than horizontally.
....... of course verifying the left shoe claim would be difficult - 100 left shoes may only mean the 100 right shoes have been buried in the sand somewhere, and the Dutch are reknowned for having a good sense of humour.
The left shoe story is beautiful. As I always say, you should never spoil a good story with the truth 😊.
There is one shot with rubber gloves on fence poles. You have been there. I remember that you made a picture of it in 2009?
Interesting is the phenomenon that weighed bottles go by the current and empty bottles by wind.
Recently the beachcombers of Texel had a lot of work to do, because over 200 containers got afloat. It still is a real craft.
LOL! Yes!! In some circumstances never spoil a good story with the truth - I believe the left shoe story implicitly.
I thought the rubber glove fence poles looked familiar but assumed this was also a feature of Texel fences - the island I cycled around was Terschelling.
I wonder what the 200 containers contained?
The containers contained: packed furniture, folding chairs, automotive parts, clothing, toys, flat screens, LED bulbs and organic peroxide (benzoyl-peroxide), dangerous to name a few.
The phenomena of the left and right shoe was a hype in the 1990s. After a container of Nike Airs had been thrown overboard on the 27th of May 1990 close to Alaska, the left shoes washed up somewhere else than the right ones months later. American oceanographers used these shoes to test their models for ocean currents.
In 2015 it was a question of the national science quiz:
A pair of sneakers fall overboard from the ferry between Calais and Dover. Where can you find those shoes most likely?
Correct answer: The left shoe on Texel and the right shoe on the Shetland Islands
Explanation:
How this goes is partly guessing, but the prevailing idea is as follows. Sneakers float with the soles upwards because there is air in them. The wind has no impact on the shoes; they only float with the current. The water that flows along the shoes changes direction more on the hollow side than on the long side. This creates a force that pushes the shoe in the direction of the long side. With the upside-down left shoe, the long side is on the right, so that the shoe will drift to the right. The right shoe has a mirrored shape and will float to the left with the current. In the northward-facing current in the North Sea, this means that the greatest chance is that the left shoe comes ashore somewhere near Texel, and the right shoe is washed ashore on the Shetland Islands.
Thank you for all that information Ben. I guess all of that makes sense. The shape of anything (in this case shoes) would mean that there would be a tendency to drift one way or the other - Two symmetrical boats one with the rudder turned one way and the other boat with the rudder turned the other way would have a tendency to go in different directions when pushed by ocean currents and the wind. The different symmetries of left and right hand shoes would I guess mirror this rudder effect.
You could test this theory by making say, 1000 completely symmetrical shoes and casting them adrift in the north sea - if equal numbers of shoes (All named Mariner with individual numbers) came ashore on Texel and on English beaches the theory would be proved true and individuals suspicious of subtle Dutch humour would be wrong.
One thing puzzles me though, how does the shoe know in which way to point? A left shoe which turns 180 degrees and points backwards will undergo a force to the left and will end up on the Shetlands. Still a long going practical joke?
Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions. If for example you turn a Jandal (Flip Flops under any other name) up side down it becomes the same shape as its opposite. So an inverted left Jandal would float in the same direction as a right Jandal. [I use the Jandal example first because I have just turned a left Jandle over on the floor next to a right one] before I typed this].
The same would be so for an inverted shoe (an inverted shoe mirrors the shape of its opposite just as the Jandal does). The presumption that shoes would float in the same position that we wear them is of course not proven - it would depend on the shoes centre of gravity.
It also presumes that shoes once capsized by a wave will right themselves again; something that is not proven. Some might say that the only way a capsized shoe could right itself would be if, like a yacht, it had an outside ballast keel.
Yes this perplexing problem deepens and theories are beginning to abound! where will it all end?
Post a Comment