Hacker News Reader

> While most rivers flow south, the Nile flows north

I've heard this before, but it doesn't sound right, unless you get a weird bias because of weather patterns and lots of landmass that would drain into the arctic ocean.

View on HN

I have a hard time conceiving of any reason that North and South would be different in this regard, but maybe it's possible if there is a tendency for rivers to flow towards the equator for some reason, since most of the world's landmass happens to be in the northern hemisphere.

Perhaps on some level, since melting ice would follow away from the ice mass. But AFAIK, there is no causative reason for rivers to flow towards the equator. A quick Google search corroborates this.

I live on the east coast of the United States and I have always felt that rivers flow east from the Appalachian mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.

If I lived in Siberia I would probably think that most rivers flow north to the Arctic Ocean.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com