“Be very, very careful what you put into that head because you will never get it out” Thomas Cardinal Woosley
I came across this quote this morning in reference to the coriolis effect on flushing toilets. Those of you familiar with this piece of “knowledge” will recognise that the water in a toilet spins in a different direction depending on the hemisphere in which one flushes. The article debuking this myth appears on a Bad Meteorology site, one of the many sites on the Internet trying to set things straight. (Another great site is Bad Astronomy). This is a good example of how quickly people believe things because they seem to make common sense and are of such grandness in scale “Wow, the Earth spinning effects my toilet!” that they must be true. But the important point is – once in there, you can’t get them out. I have recently been personally struck by the massive amount of memories that I hold. Since the birth of my daughter I have been having regular flashbacks of my past. Perhaps they are a result of the tiredness that comes from a new-born but I think also because my thoughts are “waking up” again as I get more and more excited about my work. None of the flashbacks last more than a single frame but they are extremely diverse, extend over all scales of my life and for most I have no real reason to remember them. Why would I think of filling the car with petrol on a holiday in Denmark. Why remember flashes of conversations. Why remember, but why keep it in the first place? Cardinal Woosley was right. Once it’s in there you can never get it out.