Body & HealthFact

Why spinning makes you dizzy only once you stop.

The fluid in your inner ear's semicircular canals has inertia. When you start spinning, it lags behind and bends sensory hairs: signal 'rotation'. After roughly 10 to 20 seconds of steady spinning it catches up and the signal fades. Stop now, and the fluid keeps flowing, bending the hairs the opposite way. Your ear reports a spin that isn't happening.

Useful: That's why ballet dancers fix their eyes on a point while turning ('spotting'): vision overrules the ear.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

AlltagGleichgewichtOhr

Difficulty:

Related cards

How your ear knows which way is up.Your inner ear holds a two-part measuring device. Three ring-shaped semicircular canals sit at …
If your neighbour can hear your music, it is too loud.In-ear headphones at full volume can exceed 100 dB – as loud as a circular saw, right at the …
You wash your hands – then touch your phone.A 2020 review of 56 studies found bacteria on practically every smartphone, including staphylococci …
Yawning doesn't add oxygen. Here's why you still do it.The textbook story is refuted: breathing air richer in oxygen does not reduce how often you yawn. …
In 1582, ten days simply vanished from the calendar.The Julian calendar ran about 11 minutes too long per year; by 1582 the spring equinox had drifted …
Tally sticks: medieval receipts that burned down Parliament.Before paper was common, debts were cut as notches into a wooden stick, which was then split …
A 5,300-year-old murder case with 61 tattoos.On 19 September 1991, hikers found a glacier mummy at 3,210 metres in the Ötztal Alps. Ötzi lived …
Why rich merchants were nicknamed 'pepper sacks'.In the Middle Ages, pepper travelled thousands of kilometres from India to Europe, through many …

Keep reading

This card belongs to the topic Body & Health. Every card is short, cites a source and can be saved – due ones come back by themselves later.

About Doomlearn · Projects · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms