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I'm sure most people have thought this through since the time they may have been lied to in elementary school, but rivers flow don't flow south, they flow downh
by kissickas 10y ago
I'm sure most people have thought this through since the time they may have been lied to in elementary school, but rivers flow don't flow south, they flow downhill... and there are plenty that flow north.
- gpvos 10y agoLooking at the Wikipedia list of longest rivers, the largest ones flowing northward are Yenisei, Ob, Lena, and Mackenzie. Then there's a bunch in central Europe, but they are smaller.
- gpvos 10y agoApart from the Nile, that is.
- dogma1138 10y agoWhat school do they teach that at? If we take the 2 most famous rivers then the Nile flows from south to north pretty much straight, and the Amazon flows from west to east by north east. It might have been a long time since I was in elementary school but I never heard of "rivers flowing south", could be a US thing since most of the large rivers in the US do flow southish.
- kissickas 10y agoI have no idea where I heard that fact - only remember "trivia" from friends in elementary school telling me that the Nile is the only river that flows north, daddy-longlegs are the most poisonous spiders but their mouths are too small to bite humans, etc. I'm not sure if the anecdote in the beginning is a true one but it says it takes place in Hefei, so I'm not sure it's a particularly American piece of misinformation.
- dogma1138 10y agoDon't know never heard that fact, especially considering that rivers that flow north in Europe are quite common since the norther part of Europe is still rebounding from the last large ice age and it's overall at a lower elevation than southern Europe where you also get the large mountain ranges. So famous rivers like the Sine, Elbe, Oder etc. all flow "north".
- labster 10y agoYou sound like a European. "All rivers flow south" is how all of the "climate scientists" here in the U.S. are educated. Quit pushing your European socialist agenda on us ordinary Americans.
- FreeFull 10y agoVistula too. It might actually be harder to find major rivers that flow "south".
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Jedd 10y agoAside: ages back I asked an arachnologist friend about the origin of this myth. As far as he could determine, some researcher was once asked on some random TV interview what the most poisonous spider was, and responded that no one knew, and that it may well be the daddy long legs. From that an entire generation of internet consumers now believe they are.
- chrisabrams 10y agoI was taught that rivers flowed south. When I asked my 3rd grade teacher why the Nile flowed North, she said that's impossible.
- wangchow 10y agoHeat flows from a warm system to a cold system. That was random thought lol. But, I thought they thought it flowed backwards because their direction was backwards. Similar to how electron charge is negative so it flows backwards cnceptually.
- ttam 10y agoit does seem a US thing http://geography.about.com/b/2006/06/28/do-all-rivers-flow-south.htm http://geography.about.com/b/2006/06/28/do-all-rivers-flow-s...
- protomyth 10y agoProbably not at a North Dakota school since we have a north running river (The Red River) and the continental divide which gives a nice rivers going every which way demonstration. Made for a whole mess with the flooding of Devils Lake which put a south town[1] in danger and forced the planners to deal with Canada because of overflow. 1) they literally had security while they built a concrete damn for fear someone would create their own outlet.
- Geee 10y agoRivers don't actually flow at all. It's the water.
- gpvos 10y agoNo, you're confusing a river with the river bed.
- Alex3917 10y ago> rivers flow don't flow south, they flow downhill At least in North America though glaciers usually melt from South to North, so downhill isn't necessarily evenly distributed.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoAre there a lot of major rivers with 9/lots of distributaries that flow North?