Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
Water on Mars
Recurring slope lineae (RSL) are seasonal features on Mars that leave behind gullies similar to those left by running water on Earth. Their discovery a few years ago has prompted many experiments at Martian conditions to determine how these features form. At Martian surface pressures and temperatures, it’s not unusual for water to boil. And…
Paint Balloons
The Slow Mo Guys have a history of personal sacrifice in the name of cool high-speed footage, and their Super Slow Show is no exception. In a recent segment, both Dan and Gav were knocked flat by giant swinging balloons of paint, and, as you might expect, the splashes are spectacular. The speed is just…
The Hairyflower Wild Petunia
Dispersing seeds is a challenge when you’re stuck in one spot, but plants have evolved all sorts of mechanisms for it. Some rely on animals to carry their offspring away, others create their own vortex rings. The hairyflower wild petunia turns its fruit into a catapult. As the fruit dries out, layers inside it shrink,…
Under Pressure, Part 2
Our adventures with pressure continue after the trip to the aquarium. To see just how much pressure we could generate with height, A.J. and I teamed up with the Corvallis Fire Department to recreate an experiment attributed to 17th-century French physicist Blaise Pascal. In Pascal’s experiment, he (supposedly) used a column of water to burst…
Under Pressure
Pressure is a concept that can be unintuitive, but it’s incredibly important in physics and engineering. So I’m excited to debut a collaborative video series that @mostlyenginerd and I are producing all about hydrostatic pressure! Today’s video is one of our openers: it focuses on where pressure comes from and why it’s a function of height…
Space Shuttle Sonic Booms
The Space Shuttle had a famous double sonic boom when passing overhead during re-entry. This schlieren flow visualization of a model shuttle at Mach 3 reveals the source of the sound: the fore and aft shock waves on the vehicle. The nose of the shuttle generates the strongest shock wave since it is the first…
Catching Particles with Sound
Acoustic levitation traps particles using specially shaped sound waves, but, thus far, it’s only been useful for small particles. One common method of trapping forms the sound waves into a vortex-like shape. Particles in one of these acoustic vortices will spin rapidly, become unstable, and get ejected from the vortex if they’re larger than about…
“Dance Dance”
Artist Thomas Blanchard is no stranger to fluid dynamics. His previous short films focused on mixtures of oil and paint, but in “Dance Dance,” flowers are front and center. There are obvious splashes of color and clouds of diffusion toward the end of the video, but fluid dynamics are there throughout. The oozing, inexorable march of…
Rain on Car Windows
As a child, I loved to ride in the car while it was raining. The raindrops on the window slid around in ways that fascinated and confused me. The idea that the raindrops ran up the window when the car moved made sense if the wind was pushing them, but why didn’t they just fly…
Jovian Polar Vortices
Jupiter’s atmosphere is full of enduring mysteries, and its poles are no exception. Instruments aboard the Juno spacecraft have gotten a better look at Jupiter’s North and South poles than any previous mission, and what they’ve found raises even more questions. Both of Jupiter’s poles feature a central cyclone ringed by other, similarly-sized cyclones. The…