In 2016, a senior talent show launched a new viral craze: water bottle flipping. As improbable as it seems at first glance, physics is actually on your side when it Keep reading
Month: November 2024
Bioinspiration, Underwater Sniffing, and Mixing Toothpaste
In this month’s FYFD/JFM video, we explore some intersections between the animal kingdom and our own lives. Learn about designing better buildings with inspiration from termites; see the fascinating superpower Keep reading
Exploding Meteors
During the recent Perseid shower, photographer Petr Horálek caught an awesome timelapse of an exploding meteor and the vortex ring it created. This is a type of persistent train left when meteors Keep reading
Levitating with Sound
Sound can manipulate fluids in fascinating ways, from levitation to vibration. Here researchers use sound to levitate and manipulate droplets and turn them into bubbles. Increasing the acoustic pressure on Keep reading
“Hydrophytes”
In “Hydrophytes,” industrial designer Nicole Hone imagines a future in which we’ve designed aquatic plants to counter some of the effects of climate change. To create her plants, Hone designed them Keep reading
Flying Beetles, Stinging Nettles, and Jellyfish
In the latest JFM/FYFD video, we tackle some of the less pleasant aspects of summer weather: stopping invasive insects, understanding how plants dispense poison, and looking at the physics behind Keep reading
Replacing Kalliroscope
Although you may not recognize the name, you’ve probably seen Kalliroscope (top image), a pearlescent fluid that creates beautiful flow patterns when swirled. This rheoscopic fluid was invented in the Keep reading
Flowing Flowers
Granular mixtures with particles of different sizes will often segregate themselves when flowing. In this half-filled rotating drum large red particles and smaller white ones create a stable petal-like pattern. Keep reading
Using Sound to Print
Inkjet printing and other methods for directing and depositing tiny droplets rely on the force of gravity to overcome the internal forces that hold a liquid together. But that requires Keep reading
Inside a Bubble Wall
Schlieren photography has an almost magical feeling to it because it enables us to see the invisible – like shock waves and the tiny currents of heat that rise from Keep reading