[original media no longer available] The physics of droplets freezing is important for understanding applications like ice formation on airplane wings. Here we see how a warm droplet deposited on Keep reading
Month: February 2025
Stone-Skipping Physics
Many people have learned to throw skipping stones across a pond or lake, but how many have considered the physics of how it happens? In this video, researchers use high-speed Keep reading
High-Speed Droplet Collisions
This high-speed video shows the apparatus often used by photographers for fluid sculptures created from droplet collisions. As amazing as these formations are in still images, seeing their evolution at Keep reading
Pitching Plate Flow Viz
This photograph uses fluorescent dye to visualize the wake behind a rigid flat plate pitching about its leading edge. A vortex is shed from the plate twice in each cycle of oscillation. Keep reading
Sewer Combustion
Enjoy a little high-speed video of combustion (the safe way!) this Thanksgiving holiday. For non-U.S. folks, have a great Thursday!
Superfluid Fountains
Superfluids, a special type of fluid located below the lambda point near absolute zero, exhibit some mind-bending properties like zero viscosity and zero entropy. They are, in essence, a macroscopic Keep reading
Sloshing Dynamics
[original media no longer available] Sloshing refers to the motion of a liquid inside a moving container, for example, in tanker trucks or inside a spacecraft’s fuel tank. The motion Keep reading
Faces from Laminar Mixing
These images show the laminar mixing that occurs when a flat plate moves up and down in an otherwise motionless fluid. Each face-like snapshot represents a different point in time. Keep reading
Wingtip Vortices in Ground Effect
[original media no longer available] If you’ve ever watched airplane contrails fade, you’ve probably observed the Crow instability, which causes the trailing wingtip vortices of the plane to interact and Keep reading
“Oil in Water”
There’s beauty even in something as simple as two immiscible fluids–oil and water–colliding. (Video credit: Shawn Knol)