Physics in the Bathroom Part #4: My toilet doesn't flush in a circular motion

Err...so I was planning to do a physics blog on me flushing a toilet and showing where centripetal force was pointed, however I discovered that both my toilet and my mom's bathroom's toilet don't flush with a circular pattern. Here's proof if you don't believe me.

So anyways, I had to think of a last minute topic to do...Here's my ultra lame blog about torque.

So as you can see. My hand is applying a force to the toilet paper role. Within the first 10 seconds, my hand is applying torque to the toilet paper role in the negative direction (since it is clockwise.) To find this torque, the equation τ = Fr is used, where F is the force I apply (only the force attributed to a perpendicular path from the lever arm) and r is the lever arm (the distance from my hand, in a straight line, to the pivot point.) I was not able to measure my force exactly, however the lever arm (or 'r') is 0.035m.


Around the 10 second mark, I realized that my toilet paper was overflowing on the floor so I decided to apply torque in the opposite direction which caused the role to move counterclockwise. This new torque I applied is a positive torque, where the lever arm still remains at 0.035m.


Overall, torque is basically the force applied at a certain distance from the pivot point. 'Nm' is the unit for torque. Hopefully you learned alot from my lame-o blog. Stupid toilet couldn't flush in a circle...made me super mad! =.=