This colorful photo shows three fluids — oil, water, and dish soap — illuminated by the rainbow reflection of a CD. The differing densities of each fluid creates a stratification Keep reading
The Structure of the Blue Whirl
Several years ago, researchers discovered a new type of flame, the blue whirl. Now computational simulations have helped them untangle the complex structure of this clean-burning flame. Their work shows Keep reading
The Greedy Cup in Your Washing Machine
A Pythagorean, or “greedy” cup, is one that automatically drains itself once filled to a certain level. In other words, it’s a self-starting siphon – one that triggers only at Keep reading
Wrinkles on Bubble Collapse
A viscous bubble wrinkles when it collapses, and scientists long assumed this behavior was caused by gravity. But a new experiment shows that the buckling is, instead, driven by surface Keep reading
Curls Past the Canaries
When winds flow past a solitary peak, like an island in the ocean, they’re disrupted into a series of counter-rotating curls. That’s what we see here stretching to the southwest Keep reading
Precipitation
Chemistry and fluid dynamics often go hand-in-hand. Here chemical reactions produce visible precipitates as one chemical drops into the other. The shapes that form are distinctly fluid dynamical, with vortex Keep reading
The Undisturbed Waters of Lake Kivu
Deep in Africa lies one of the world’s strangest lakes. Lake Kivu, over 450 meters in depth, is so stratified that its layers never mix. The upper portion of Lake Keep reading
Streamlining Circa 1936
This 1936 promotional film by Chevrolet explains the concept of streamlining objects to reduce their drag. And it actually does a pretty nice job of it, including some wind tunnel Keep reading
The Colors of a Thin Film
Soap bubbles and other thin films are colorful thanks to wave interference across their tiny thickness, but you may have noticed that only some colors appear. Others, like red, seem Keep reading
Jets Beneath Leidenfrost Drops
When a droplet impacts, it’s not unusual for converging ripples to form an upward jet, like the one seen here. But under the right circumstances, jets can form downward, too. Keep reading