In this video, the HouseholdHacker heads to the kitchen and uses milk, food coloring, and dish soap to create some solutal convection much like this one with cream and liqueur. Keep reading
Month: March 2025
Marangoni Convection in Space
In this Saturday Morning Science video, astronaut Don Pettit demonstrates Marangoni convection in microgravity using a water film with tracer particles, a soldering iron, and a flashlight. This same effect Keep reading
Vortex Street
A flow visualization behind a cylinder shows the formation of a von Karman vortex street. The frequency of vortex shedding in the wake is directly related to the speed of Keep reading
Waves on Cornstarch
A thin layer of the non-Newtonian fluid oobleck on a vibrating surface (in this case, a speaker) is a great way to show off nonlinear standing waves known as Faraday Keep reading
Frosting on Superhydrophobic Surfaces
Icing on airplane wings can be disastrous for lift and control, and thus how ice initially forms on a wing is an active area of research. New work shows that Keep reading
Droplet Impact in 3D
This stereo photo of a droplet by John Hart shows the formation of a crown and droplet breakup. It’s possible to see the picture in 3D by crossing one’s eyes. Keep reading
Thermal Convection
This video turbulent convection in a vertical channel. Buoyancy and the density variations caused by small differences in temperature are what drive the behavior.
The Roaming Rocks of Death Valley
The dry lake beds of Death Valley National Park in California are home to a perplexing phenomenon: roaming rocks. These rocks, some of which weigh hundreds of pounds, leave long Keep reading
Steering Water Droplets
At the microscale, fluid behavior can be quite different than what we witness in everyday life. Mechanisms that have little effect on the macroscale suddenly become extremely important in a Keep reading
Starting a Rocket
This computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation shows the start-up of a two-dimensional, ideal rocket nozzle. Starting a rocket engine or supersonic wind tunnel is more complicated than its subsonic counterpart Keep reading