Eli5 when it’s windy outside why does the water in toilets swish a little bit?
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It’s the air pressure outside. To have air move at all, you would have to stretch and pack it a little. Think about it: open a window – now how would you get the air out? Either you’d push it out from inside, or you’d stand outside and yank it out somehow. Either way, you’d have to stretch it in some places, and in other places you’d stuff it. The same happens when it’s windy. The wind will pile up air in some places, and it’ll have to come from other places for that, so that there be will places where there’s too little air, and places where there is too much. The way things are, given the huge areas involved and all, this little “pressure” (and it is really little, on the order of mbar) is enough to move other stuff. And this is what happens with the watertable and any other “body” of water. Like the water inside pipes. Since air is everywhere, it squeezes or stretches all pipes, too. They’d give way a little, and this would make the water flow around inside. You can try it with a garden hose. When you stand on it, water will come out at the ends.
You can’t stretch this, though. You could try, but i don’t think it would be any fun.
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