Law of Urination

Here I am in the Bahamas reading about the physics behind what happens when you just gotta go and of course the answer comes from some folks back in my home state (not the state of confusion, though I am there a lot too) but instead Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, to be specific. They did research into which mammals empty their bladders fastest, cows, elephants, or dogs. When I saw cows I immediately thought about cows pissing on a flat rock- something I’d heard used to describe a down pouring of rain. Then I thought elephants should have gravity as an advantage, but from my days teaching science in Kindergarten, I knew what gravity has to do with the speed of different masses falling to earth and in the case of urination I figured it wouldn't make much difference. Dogs were the next animal considered and I thought I could easily have tested how long it takes a dog to empty its bladder by timing my own dog, Fred, but he is back in GA, and I am not. I could time him over and over again on any given walk. Of course I also thought of my husband’s lyric mangling versions of the songs in his repertoire that include, changing It was just my ‘magination to It was just my urination, or It was urination I know..yada, yada the golden flow..I don’t really know what the original lyrics are on that one anymore. But back to the Law of Urination, cows, elephants, and dogs, despite the differences in the sizes of their bladders and the lengths of their urethras, all manage to empty their bladders in roughly 21 seconds. There are some limitations to the law of urination as one might expect, including the times it takes for smaller mammals like rats and bats to empty their bladders. But there you have it..The Law of Urination!