Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
“Fusion of Helios”
Built from approximately 90,000 individual images, “Fusion of Helios” reveals the wisp-like corona of our Sun. Astrophotographers Andrew McCarthy and Jason Guenzel joined forces to combine eclipse images with data from NASA to build this fusion of art and science. Jets of plasma, known as spicules, dot the sun’s surface, and a towering tornado of…
Oil-Covered Bubbles Popping
When bubbles burst, they release smaller droplets from the jet that rebounds upward. Depending on their size, these droplets can fall back down or get lofted upward on air currents that spread them far and wide. Thus, knowing what kind of bubbles produce small, fast droplets is important for understanding air pollution, climate, and even…
Acoustic Cameras
Acoustic cameras use arrays of microphones to isolate where sounds are coming from. As Steve Mould shows in this video, they have some incredibly cool properties. They can show engineers which part of a device is producing particular sound frequencies, which is handy, for example, when trying to quiet a vacuum cleaner or learn which…
Drying Cracks
Droplets with particles in them can leave complex stains when they dry — just look at coffee rings and whiskey marks! Here, researchers look at the patterns left on glass by small droplets that evaporated and left behind their nanoparticles. As evaporation takes place, the droplet’s shape changes, adding stress to the growing layer of…
Mermaid Cereal
In the Cheerios effect, floating objects can fall into one another due to capillary attraction — just like Cheerios link up in a cereal bowl. Here researchers play with that effect by adding repulsive magnets to their “cereal” pieces. They find that their so-called mermaid cereal falls into preferential spacing, with pieces pairing up but…
Banzai Pipeline From Above
On the north shore of O’ahu, Hawaii, Banzai Pipeline is known for some of the most thrilling and deadly surfing in the world. The area’s barrel rolls are triggered when incoming waves break over the shallow reef. Photographer Kevin Krautgartner captures the waves from above, showcasing the incredible energy inherent in the ocean. The motion…
Switchable Explosives
Explosives are used in many fields, including mining and demolition, but storing these devices is difficult and dangerous. Hundreds of accidents — many resulting in fatalities — have happened over the decades, simply because there is no true “off-switch” for explosive devices. But a group out of Los Alamos believe they’ve changed that. Using 3D-printing,…
Anchoring Mussels
Mussels live in rough conditions, constantly pummeled by waves and turbulent currents. They hold themselves fast in the flow using dozens of byssel threads (commonly called a mussel’s beard) that anchor them to rocks and other mussels. The threads get built within the mussel’s foot, the tongue-like protrusion mussels use to drag themselves. The threads…
Polygonal Jumps
When you turn on your kitchen faucet, you may have noticed a big circle that forms on the bottom of the sink. This is a hydraulic jump, a region where fast-moving, shallow flow shifts to a slower-moving, deeper flow. Although these jumps start out circular, if the fluid is deeper than a critical value, the…
Walking in the Wake of a Cylinder
A cylinder in a flow produces a series of alternating vortices known as a von Karman vortex street. Changing the flow speed and rotating the cylinder both allow researchers to tune the frequency of these shed vortices. What happens to an object in the wake? For a simple hydrofoil tethered to the cylinder, the object…