What looks like Baroque paintings are, in fact, underwater photographs in Christy Lee Rogers’ new “Muses” series. By photographing her models underwater at night, Rogers creates a unique, almost dream-like atmosphere Keep reading
Month: December 2023
Heating from Cavitation
When cavitation bubbles collapse, they can produce temperatures well over 2,000 Kelvin. Since cavitation near a surface can be so destructive, researchers have long wondered whether the high temperatures inside Keep reading
Visualizing Aerosols
Aerosols, micron-sized particles suspended in the atmosphere, impact our weather and air quality. This visualization shows several varieties of aerosol as measured August 23rd, 2018 by satellite. The blue streaks Keep reading
Antibubbles
Antibubbles are peculiar and ephemeral creations. A bubble typically encloses a gas within a thin layer of fluid. As the name suggests, an antibubble does the opposite: it’s a thin Keep reading
The Driver of Hydraulic Jumps
You’ve seen it a million times. When you turn on your kitchen faucet, the falling water forms a distinctive ring – known as a hydraulic jump – in the bottom Keep reading
Why Fish Don’t Freeze
Have you ever wondered why it is that fish in a pond or lake don’t freeze during the winter? The secret is due to a peculiarity of water that’s vital Keep reading
Bringing the Stars Home
One of my favorite aspects of fluid dynamics is the way that the same patterns and phenomena appear over and over again – sometimes in the most unexpected places. That’s Keep reading
The Jumping Flea
Nearly every lab has a magnetic stirrer for mixing fluids, but this ubiquitous tool still holds some surprises, like its ability to unexpectedly levitate. Magnetic stirrers consist of two main Keep reading
Zones and Stars
Large-scale rotating flows, like planetary atmospheres, tend to organize themselves into zones. Within a zone, flow remains essentially in an east-west direction and serves as a barrier that keeps heat Keep reading
Swirling the Wrong Way
When you swirl wine, you create a rotating wave that travels in the direction that you’re moving the glass. You would expect that anything floating atop that fluid would travel Keep reading