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Shower Curtain Attack

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Referencing NEWTON BBS Articles
Frequently Asked Questions

Shower Curtain Attack


Question:  Why does the shower curtain bell inward (toward you) when you are 
taking a shower?  Is that Bernoulli's principle at work?

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up-date April, 2001
A shower curtain will billow into the shower regardless of water temperature.  A 
person taking a cold shower is no safer from a shower curtain attack than 
the person taking a hot shower.  It is the movement of the water (and 
thereby the surrounding air) that creates the pressure difference, not 
the temperature of the air.  Besides, if it was a thermal difference that 
caused the curtain to move, then by all rights it should billow outwards, 
since the tendency is to move from hot to cold.

Elizabeth Wilson
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Last Update: April 2006