In this video, NPR’s Adam Cole takes a trip to upstate New York to find out how to make lava – and not the kind with vinegar and baking soda! Keep reading
Month: May 2020
“En Plein Vol”
Artist Antoine Terrieux’s “En Plein Vol” exhibit shows off the power of hair dryers. Parts of the exhibit, like the floating ball at 0:16, rely on Bernoulli’s principle and the Keep reading
Spinning Paint
Fluid dynamical behaviors are often the result of competing forces. Here paint flung from a spinning rod illustrates the effects of adhesion, surface tension, and centrifugal force. In general, surface Keep reading
Underwater Explosions
As dangerous as explosions are in air, they are even more destructive in water. Because air is a compressible fluid, some part of an explosion’s energy is directed into air Keep reading
Bubble Rupture
Surface tension draws bubbles into spheres, but the balance of forces holding the sphere together is delicate. When pierced by a projectile, sometimes soap films can heal themselves, but often Keep reading
Calbuco
Filmmaker Martin Heck captured incredible timelapse footage of the Chilean volcano Calbuco erupting earlier this year. Fluid dynamics on these enormous geophysical scales is always awe-inducing. In the beginning, clouds Keep reading
Water in Oil
Pouring water on an oil fire is a quick way to cause almost explosive results. Since water is denser than oil, it quickly sinks to the bottom of a container, Keep reading
Sea Foam
Photographer Lloyd Meudell captures surrealistic images of breaking sea foam. Interestingly, the sea foam is essentially a three-phase fluid made up of air, water, and sand. Yet despite the surrealism Keep reading
The Upside-Down Jellyfish
The upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea lives along the sea bottom in coastal regions. As its name suggests, the jellyfish rests upside-down with its bell against the sea floor and its frilly oral Keep reading
Reader Question: Lift
everyonelikespotatissallad asks: so, how is lift actually generated? i’ve been going through Anderson’s Introduction to Flight (6th Ed.) and while it offers the derivation of various equations very thoroughly, it barely Keep reading