If you’ve ever watched a rocket launch, you’ve probably noticed the billowing clouds around the launch pad during lift-off. What you’re seeing is not actually the rocket’s exhaust but the Keep reading
Month: November 2024
Tightrope Walkair
A bubble rising through water can get caught on an aerophilic (air-attracting) fiber. The bubble will then adhere to the fiber and be guided to the surface by it. In Keep reading
Chains of Salps
Salps are small, jellyfish-like marine invertebrates that swim by ejecting a pulsatile jet. They are unusual creatures whose lives have two major stages: one in which salps swim individually and Keep reading
Chinese Spouting Bowl Physics
In their newest video, the Slow Mo Guys recreated one of my favorite effects: vibration-driven droplet ejection. For this, they use a Chinese spouting bowl, which has handles that the Keep reading
Wrinkling Drops
When a viscous drop falls into a pool of a less viscous liquid, the drop can deform into some beautiful and complex shapes. Typically, shear forces between the drop and Keep reading
When Fire Ants are a Fluid
Substances don’t have to be a liquid or a gas to behave like a fluid. Swarms of fire ants display viscoelastic properties, meaning they can act like both a liquid Keep reading
Songs in Soap
There are many beautiful ways to visualize sound and music – Chris Stanford’s fantastic “Cymatics” music video comes to mind – but this is one I haven’t seen. This visualization Keep reading
Flowing Ice
Glaciers are kind of bizarre. Despite being very solid, they still flow, sometimes on the order of a meter a day. This flow is driven by gravity and the incredible Keep reading
Squishy Impacts
How spheres impact water has been studied for more than a century. The typical impact for a rigid sphere creates a cavity like the one on the upper left – Keep reading
Flying Fragments
Flying fragments can be a big danger in explosions. Shown above are two shadowgraph images of 1 gram explosives originally packed in solid containers. Each explosion produced a visible spherical Keep reading