Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
Brace For Impact
What happens in the moment before an object hits the water? That’s the question at the heart of a new study exploring how water deforms before an object’s impact. The researchers dropped circular disks onto a pool of water and, using a new reflection-based technique, measured micron-sized deflections in the water’s surface before impact, as…
Blue Dunes
This false-color image shows a Martian dune field near the northern polar cap. The image itself covers an area 30 kilometers wide, but the dune field stretches over an area the size of Texas. In the photo cooler areas have been rendered in bluer tints, while warm areas are shown in yellow and orange. The…
Tiny Symmetric Swimmers
Microswimmers live in a world dominated by viscosity, and in viscous fluids, symmetric motion provides no propulsion. That’s why bacteria and other tiny organisms use cilia, corkscrew flagella, and other asymmetric means to swim. But a new study decouples the symmetry of a swimmer’s motion from the motion of the fluid, thereby creating a tiny…
“Stream”
Roman De Giuli’s short film “Stream” explores a macro world of color and flow, with a few glimpses behind-the-scenes at how the visuals get made. The artistic canvas here is a glass plate; the materials are oil, ink, and water. As simple as the ingredients are, though, the view is complex and enchanting. It’s amazing…
The Mobile Mud Spring of Niland, CA
What’s part geyser, part mud pot, and all creeping, unstoppable natural disaster? The Niland Geyser, known as the world’s only moving mud spring. Dianna explores this geological mystery in the video above. Although the mud spring has been known for years, it was only in 2016 that it started moving toward railroad tracks and a…
Skipping Stone Physics
Skipping stones across water has fascinated humans for millennia, but incredibly, we’re still uncovering the physics of this game today. A recent paper built and experimentally validated a mathematical model of a spinning, skipping disk. The authors found that, in order to skip, a stone needs to generate upward acceleration greater than 3.8 times gravity.…
The Intermittent Spring of Afton, WY
Yellowstone may get top billing, but Wyoming is home to more fluid dynamical wonders, like the world’s largest rhythmic spring. Located a little outside Afton, WY, Intermittent Spring — as the name indicates — runs for roughly 15 minutes, stops for the same length, then starts up again. The leading theory for this periodic flow…
Space Hurricanes
Researchers have observed their first “space hurricane” – a 1,000-km-wide vortex of plasma – in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Like conventional hurricanes, this storm featured precipitation (of electrons rather than rain), a calm eye at its center, and several spiral arms. Based on the group’s model, interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic fields drive…
Light Painting
Light streams from the branches of trees in this series from photographer Vitor Schietti. The effect is created with a combination of fireworks, long-exposure photography, and compositing. I love how the falling sparks create streaklines just like so many flow visualization diagnostics do! Follow more of Schietti’s work on Instagram. (Image credit: V. Schietti; via…
Where Does Stormwater Go?
Stormwater management is one of the biggest municipal challenges towns and cities face. Urban surfaces are largely impermeable, preventing rainwater from soaking into the ground. Instead roads, ditches, and channels collect water and, typically, divert it as quickly as possible into natural waterways. In contrast, wild landscapes tend to slow water run-off, filtering it into…