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| The requisite tourist shot, Pam in the Southern hemisphere and Randy in the Northern hemisphere. Inside the monument is a museum. There's a lot of crazy folklore at this place, everything from claiming you can only balance an egg on a pin at the equator to claims that when you flush a toilet here the water just goes straight down (rather than swirling). They are mostly fiction -- but it is true that a person weighs less while standing on the equator! This is because the Earth bulges at its middle so that you are about 21 km further from the center of gravity than you are on the North or South Pole and also because of the extra centripetal force generated by the spinning of the planet. Don't get excited about becoming The Biggest Loser though -- your weight here is only 0.3% less than at the poles! |
