Reminder: I’ll be doing a special webcast with Professor Tadd Truscott and PhD student Randy Hurd of The Splash Lab tomorrow Saturday, March 5th at 1pm EST! We’ll be talking about skipping elastic balls, people running on water, urine black holes, and much more. I will be posting the livestream link on Patreon tomorrow afternoon. If you want to tune in, you should sign up as an FYFD patron!
FYFD made it into the February issue of APS News! Click here to read the online version, which is way easier than deciphering my cell phone’s photos.
For the next week, FYFD is going to be exploring the physics of walking on water. Birds, bugs, and balls can all do it – we’ll look at how! To top off the week, I’ll be holding my first-ever FYFD live webcast on Saturday, March 5th at 1 pm EST (10 am PST; 6 pm GMT). My guests are Professor Tadd Truscott and PhD student Randy Hurd of the Splash Lab! Tadd, Randy, and their Splash Lab compatriots have been responsible for some of my favorite FYFD topics over the past five years and I’m super excited to have them on the webcast.
Normally, my webcasts will be reserved for FYFD’s $5+ Patreon patrons, but since this is a special occasion, we’re going to make the Hangout on Air link live to any FYFD patron on Patreon. Not a patron yet? What are you waiting for? Go sign up! You don’t want to miss this.
As a bonus, here’s Randy demonstrating his research:
(Original grebe image: W. Watson/USFWS; all other photos: The Splash Lab)
tl;dr version: FYFD is launching a Patreon campaign. If you enjoy FYFD and want to help support its continued growth, please become a patron today!
And the longer version: At the start of the year, I hinted that there were big things ahead for FYFD. Today’s announcement is part of that. In the past five years, FYFD has grown beyond my wildest dreams. I’m so excited, grateful, and happy to share my love for science with all of you. As FYFD’s audience has grown, so have my plans and dreams for expanding the site and what it does. I want to bring you more: videos that take you behind-the-scenes to see the scientific process firsthand, interviews that let you meet the people behind the work, and articles that explore new and exciting fluid phenomena.
All of the research, filming, writing, and editing necessary to bring those dreams to life takes time and money. I can provide the first: from now on, I’ll be dedicating my full-time attention to FYFD. But I need your help and support to make this possible. That’s why I’m launching a campaign on Patreon. If you enjoy FYFD and want to help it continue and grow, please consider becoming a patron. Your monthly support will enable me to dedicate my full energy to FYFD and will provide funding for materials, equipment, and travel so that I can bring the science back to you.
There are also some pretty cool rewards available to patrons! All patrons will have access to a patrons-only activity feed where I post behind-the-scenes content and extras like video outtakes. It’s also a place where I’ll look for feedback on new ideas. Think of it as an extra dose of FYFD. Other rewards include getting your name added to the FYFD supporter page, getting a handwritten postcard from me, and access to a monthly webcast where I’ll chat with guest scientists and patrons. (I’m really excited about that last one!)
Whether you become a patron or not, I want to thank you for your support. None of those would be possible without you and your enthusiasm. As always, the best thing you can do to support FYFD is to tell others how much you like it. Thank you!
If you have any questions, I’ll be online all day. You can reach me via Tumblr, Twitter, or email.
2015 was a pretty good year. FYFD turned five, we had a great reader survey response, and Tumblr gave us a Tumblr Lifetime Achievement! Guess that means I’ve got more in common with Wil Wheaton and the New York Public Library than my lifelong obsession with books.
Without further ado, I give you the top 10 FYFD posts of 2015:
1. The secret of the dancing droplets
2. The open siphon and self-pouring liquids
3. Fingers of sea foam
4. The physics of rain drops falling on a puddle
5. Fin-like Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds in the Galapagos
6. A fish swimming in microgravity
7. Hawaiian lava waterspouts
8. Colorado’s Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds
9. Delicious fluid dynamics in the kitchen
10. Inside of a fluidic oscillator
Thanks for a great year, readers, and stay tuned. There are exciting developments afoot for 2016!
(Image credits: N. Cira et al., Ewoldt Research Group, L. Meudell, K. Weiner, C.Miller, IRPI LLC, B. Omori, Breckenridge Resort, Buttery Planet, M. Sieber et al.)
Heads-up for those coming to Boston for APS DFD 2015. I’m giving a talk about FYFD and outreach Sunday evening at 5:16pm in Room 102. I’ll also be around the conference all weekend, so hopefully I’ll see you around. Also, I have FYFD stickers, but you have to come talk to me to get one! (Image credit: APS DFD 2015)
Just a heads-up that I’ll be at Brown University tomorrow giving a talk and then helping out with a science visualization hackathon. I’m super excited for the opportunity to have some hands-on flow visualization fun with folks!
The lecture is public, but I think only Brown students can register for the workshop.
FYFD is 5 years old! Hard to believe it’s been five whole years. Thank you to everyone who has helped along the way, especially those of you who produce, submit, and share such beautiful fluid dynamics.
Thanks also to everyone who is participating in our reader survey. We’re getting a lot of great feedback. If you haven’t taken it yet, there’s still time!
And, finally, in honor of five years of FYFD, I present you with the five most popular FYFD posts of all time:
1. Swimming through surface tension – Originally posted 7 Feb 2013
2. Bioluminescence as a defense mechanism – Originally posted 4 Sep 2014
3. Liquid mushroom – Originally posted 19 Feb 2013
4. Dancing droplets – Originally posted 30 Mar 2015
5. Stepping on lava – Originally posted 19 Dec 2014
It’s only fitting to take a moment to look back at 2014 as we step into the New Year. It was a big year in many respects – we hit 1000 posts and broke 200,000 followers; I started producing FYFD videos on our YouTube channel; and, on a personal note, I finished up my PhD. But since we’re all about the science around here, I will give you, without further ado, the top 10 FYFD posts of 2014:
1. Bioluminescent crustaceans use light for defense
2. What happens when you step on lava
3. Flapping flight deconstructed
4. Wingtip vortices demonstrated
5. Saturn’s auroras
6. Raindrops’ impact on sand
7. Water spheres in microgravity
8. The surreal undulatus asperatus cloud
9. Inside a plunging breaker
10. A simply DIY Marangoni effect demo
I can’t help but notice that 9 out of the 10 posts feature animated GIFs. Oh, Tumblr, you rascals. Happy New Year! (Image credits: BBC; A. Rivest; E. Lutz; Nat. Geo/BBC2; ESA/Hubble; R. Zhao et al.; D. Petit; A. Schueth; B. Kueny and J. Florence; Flow Visualization at UC Boulder)
Reminder: APS DFD is starting today. Follow along on Twitter at @fyfluiddynamics and #APSDFD. Later today at 12:30 PT you can follow our science communication workshop and ask questions at #DFDSciComm.