Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
Pumping With Faraday Waves
Vibrate a liquid pool vertically, and it will form a pattern of standing waves known as Faraday waves. Here, researchers confine those waves to a narrow ring similar in size to the wave. The confinement causes a type of secondary flow — a streaming flow — beneath the water surface. As a result, the wave…
“Bubbles Experience”
Acrylic paint, oil, water, and air combine to create ephemeral sculptures in Alberto Seveso’s “Bubbles Experience” series. I love the mixture of shapes he achieves, from large, seemingly-laminar columns to a mist of bubbles, each trailing a painted tail. They’re like tiny, liquid comets. See more from this series here and find more examples of…
Stabilizing Jupiter’s Polar Storms
Four years ago, Juno discovered an octagon of eight cyclones at Jupiter’s northern pole and a similar five cyclone structure at its southern pole. Since then, both polygons have remained intact. What keeps the storm systems so stable is still an open question, but a recent observational study using Juno measurements found that an anticyclonic…
A Fractal Raft From a Spinning Top
File this one under Cool Things I Would Have Never Thought Of. In this video, researchers play around with the flow around a spinning top and end up creating a fractal, granular raft. By immersing a top in dyed fluid, they show the toroidal vortices that form around the spinning toy. Then, instead of dye,…
Searching for Stability
At present, there is no theory of relativistic fluid dynamics, which is problematic for those studying black holes, neutron star mergers, and heavy-ion collisions, where fluids may wind up moving at near-light speeds. Many current models for these systems allow energy to dissipate using equations that permit faster-than-light speeds. A new study shows that these…
DIY Superwalking Droplets
Over the past few years, we’ve seen lots of research in walking droplets, especially as hydrodynamic quantum analogs. But did you know you can replicate this set-up at home and play with it yourself? This video gives an overview of the equipment you’ll need and a simple procedure to follow to get it up and…
Ascending Through Bubbles
Photographer Lucie Pollet caught this image of her freediving friend ascending through a plume of bubbles and sunlight. I love the otherworldliness of the image, like the diver is an astronaut in the dark of space. The illumination of the bubbles is spectacular, too, and reminds me of the way penguins use supercavitation to help…
Fluid Flow For Digestive Health
During digestion, our intestines use two different patterns of muscle contraction to move food through our bodies. Scientists have long wondered why we have this added complexity. Using numerical simulations of the fluid flow created by these contractions, researchers have uncovered the answer. Our intestines use peristalsis, a forward-with-occasional-backward flow pattern, as the main driver.…
“Reconfiguring It Out”
Leaves flutter and bend in the breeze, changing their shape in response to the flow. Here, researchers investigate this behavior using flexible disks pulled through water. The more flexible the disk and the faster the flow, the more cup-like the disk’s final shape. Adding tracer particles to the water allows them to visualize the flow…
Mixing Effectively
Mixing two fluids is a tougher task than you might think. One of my favorite asides from a fluids lecture concerned how to mix fruit into yogurt in an industrial setting. Mix too quickly, and you’ll obliterate the yogurt’s consistency, but mix too little and you may as well sell it as fruit-on-the-bottom. Apparently that…