The larger of the two museums is called Mitad del Mundo - the centre of the world. The main attraction is a tower in the centre of the park which supposedly stands on the line itself. It was built in .... to replace an earlier monument which was built based on the most accurate data at the time. As it turns out it was significantly less accurate than the local indigenous people who 1500 years ago built a temple which got it dead on, but in the case of the tower they missed by over 800m! Ellen and I enjoy taking a picture with both of us standing in the Southern Hemisphere. The rest of the museum complex is barely even worth mentioning, a few rooms of (truly terrible) pictures and a planetarium that I could have set up in my classroom. Most irritating of all is that nowhere in the whole place do they admit that the line isn't actually on the equator! I'm sure it would probably be bad for business, but watching countless tourists line up to take a picture on the line that isn't THE LINE makes both of us feel a bit strange about the whole experience, even though we had taken the exact same picture ourselves. All in all the museum felt like a bit of a let down for somewhere that could have been a really interesting place, the directors should take advice from the people who run the Greenwich observatory.
The second museum is a much smaller affair, far more entertaining, and in its way much worse. Called the Intinan museum, the main draw is the guided tour where tourists get to try a variety of pseudo-science experiments to 'prove' they are on the equator. Every single one of them is fake, ranging from nonsense explanations of unrelated phenomena to full blown magic tricks passed off as scientific demonstrations.
"For the next demonstration I am going to use an egg." The guide motions us towards a small podium built directly on the large red painted line on the floor labelled "equator - latitude 0, 0, 0" (200m south of the actual equator).
"You can see this is a normal egg" he says holding up the egg in the same way a magician might say 'look at this pack of cards that I have in no way set up, marked or hard boiled'. He shakes the egg a bit to show just how normal it is and then turns back to face the podium, a short column of stone with a ledge on either side that has a wide-headed nail hammered into it. "Only on the equator can you do this trick of balancing an egg on the head of a nail, if you try this anywhere else it will be impossible for you to do it. Only here." He turns and with a little flourish balances the egg on its end. "Would anyone like a go?" A forest of hands shoot up from his 18 strong tour group. I scan their faces and somewhat to my dismay there only seem to be 3 others besides myself and Ellen wearing a bemused sceptical expression. I'm all for a bit of fun balancing an egg, but something that I hadn't really anticipated until right this second was how much I don't like it being passed off as 'science'. All I keep thinking was that as a physics teacher, all I am going to end up having to do is un-teach this twaddle.
"Why does it only work on the equator?" I ask, my desire to mythbust battling up against my desire to not ruin people's day by creating awkward situations.
"Good question!" Says the guide. "If you are in either the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere then the yolk inside the egg will be subject to the Coriolis effect causing it to spin. A centrifugal force is created inside the egg so you will never be able to balance it."
"Ah." I nod slowly.
"But here on the equator is the place on Earth where gravity pulls directly downwards. The yolk is the densest heavyset part of the egg, so it gets pulled down more strongly which means that the egg is more stable."
There is so much wrong with this explanation that my mind is temporarily sent reeling and by the time I've counted through all the errors in my head everyone else has made appreciative noises and moved on while Ellen looks at me a facial expression that says "well? were you expecting a good answer?"
Other demonstrations include:-
- Water swirling down a drain in different directions depending on which side of the equator you stand on, blamed on the Coriolis effect, achieved by initially pouring the water into the sink from different directions.
- Being unable to resist a downwards force to the arms supplied by the guide, explained by muscles losing strength on the equator due to the increased strength of gravity, achieved by a clever use of the lever effect sometimes explained in children's magic or 'science to try at home' books.
- Walking along a straight line without losing balance, blamed on extra strong gravity acting straight down at the equator, achieved by - well this is something that you should just normally be able to do.
At the end of the tour I am left feeling incredibly frustrated, but still unwilling to cause a scene, and so both of us leave with an interesting experience but one we are annoyed to have paid towards continuing.
Before we leave Ellen and I decide that we can't go back to the hotel without actually having stood on the equator. Luckily I know some science that really will confirm when you are standing on the equator, it involves a complex series of electronic signalling devices, a satellite or two and a compass. So we fetch out Ellen's I phone and use the compass app to track our position on GPS. While not as accurate as military GPS, it's good enough for us and soon we find ourselves standing in a car park by the side of a busy main road. There is no line, no sign, and nothing special to mark the location. But it feels good to be using real science, we both stand with one foot in either hemisphere and take the proper pictures. It's worth the visit.
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