Fluorescein is a popular chemical for flow visualization, and, as this video from Shanks FX demonstrates, it’s not hard to extract from highlighters if you’d like to experiment with it Keep reading
Month: September 2024
Non-Newtonian Splashes
What happens when a stream of liquid falls through a screen? As the above video shows, water creates a beautiful flower-like burst of fluid when it hits a screen. Adding Keep reading
Reflecting in a Stream
Total internal reflection traps three lasers in a stream of falling water. When light tries to pass from the water – a material with a high refractive index – to Keep reading
The Pythagorean Cup
According to legend, Pythagoras invented a cup to prevent his students from drinking too greedily. If they overfilled the cup, it would immediately drain out all the fluid. The trick Keep reading
Shaking in the Wind
Sitting at a traffic stop on a windy day, you may have noticed the beam holding the traffic lights shaking steadily up and down. This phenomenon is called vortex-induced vibration. Keep reading
Fluid Fingers
Fluid phenomena can show up in unexpected places. The collage above shows patterns formed when an aluminum block is lifted during wet sanding, a polishing technique. The dendritic fingers are Keep reading
Plesiosaur Swimming
Plesiosaurs are marine reptiles that thrived during the Jurassic period and went extinct some 66 million years ago. Since the first discoveries of plesiosaur fossils centuries ago, scientists have debated Keep reading
Dripping, Frozen
The simple drip of a faucet is more complicated when frozen in time. Any elongated strand of water tends to break up into droplets due to surface tension and the Keep reading
Clogging, In Hourglasses and Crowds
Hourglasses are pretty common, but you’ve probably never given much thought to the way they flow. An hourglass designer has to carefully select the sizing of the neck and the Keep reading
Frost Spreading
Frost typically forms when supercooled droplets of water scattered across a surface freeze together. The freezing spreads via tiny ice bridges that link droplets together into a frozen network. The Keep reading