FYFD

Category: Art

  • Icelandic Flows

    Icelandic Flows

    Known as “The Land of Fire and Ice,” Iceland has some of the most striking landscapes around. Photographer Jennifer Esseiva captures auroras, waterfalls, geysers, rivers, and more in this series from her 2024 trip to the island. Every one of these images bears the fingerprints of fluid dynamics: plasma flows lighting up the night sky; rivers of lava that formed the land; rivers and oceans that carve through the landscape; and pressurized, superheated water that shoots up from underground plumbing. (Image credit: J. Esseiva; via Colossal)

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    “Trinity”

    Inspired by the film Oppenheimer, artist Thomas Blanchard created “Trinity,” a short film imagining a nuclear explosion with macro-scale fluid motion. There’s clever video editing and compositing in this video, but no CGI. Instead, Blanchard filmed fire, sparklers, alcohol inks, pigments and more up close and in stunning detail. As always, his work is a reminder of the amazing possibilities of analog-based art. (Video and image credit: T. Blanchard)

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    “One”

    A 4-minute, unedited one-shot video of colorful paint sliding down a sheet? Yes, please.

    Beautiful visuals aside, there are some really interesting physics involved here. It’s unclear whether the there’s any change in the speed at which paint gets deposited at the top of the incline over the course of the video, yet we see huge changes in the visual patterns. This happens, in part, because the layer of paint is getting thicker and heavier over time, changing the dynamics of its slide under gravity. There may even be some shear-thinning going on, given that paint is usually non-Newtonian. I can imagine some connections to landslides, avalanches, and other gravity currents with non-Newtonian fluids. (Video and image credit: R. De Giuli)

  • “My Own Galaxy”

    “My Own Galaxy”

    Fungal spores sketch out minute air currents in this shortlisted photograph by Avilash Ghosh. The moth atop a mushroom appears to admire the celestial view. In the largely still air near the forest floor, mushrooms use evaporation and buoyancy to generate air flows capable of lifting their spores high enough to catch a stray breeze. (Image credit: A. Ghosh/CUPOTY; via Colossal)

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    “Lively”

    In “Lively,” filmmaker Christopher Dormoy zooms in on ice. He shows ice forming and melting, capturing bubbles and their trails, as well as the subtle flows that go on in and around the ice. By introducing blue dye, he highlights some of the internal flows we would otherwise miss. (Video and image credit: C. Dormoy)

  • “Waterfall Wonder”

    “Waterfall Wonder”

    The Semeru volcano rises in the background of this photo of Java’s Tumpak Sewa waterfall by Joan de la Malla. Rain that falls on the volcano slides down its flank and wanders through the jungle on its way to the spectacular 120-meter-high waterfall. From the clouds wreathing the mountain through the jungle’s drifting fogs to the mists of the falls, this portrait highlights the many forms water takes on its journey. (Image credit: J. de la Malla/WPOTY; via Colossal)

  • Bubbling Up

    Bubbling Up

    By volume, Lake Baikal is the world’s largest lake, holding over 20% of the planet’s fresh water. It’s also a major carbon sink, holding large amounts of methane. That’s the gas trapped in the frozen bubbles seen here. Baikal’s ice is exceptionally clear, making long trails of frozen bubbles visible during the winter. (Image credit: K. Makeeva; via APOD)

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    Within a Drop

    In this macro video, various chemical reactions swirl inside a single dangling droplet. Despite its tiny size, quite a lot can go on in a drop like this. Both the injection of chemicals and the chemical reactions themselves can cause the flows we see here. Surface tension variations and capillary waves on the exterior of the drop can play a role, too. Just because a flow is tiny doesn’t mean it’s simple. (Video and image credit: B. Pleyer; via Nikon Small World in Motion)

    Chemical reactions swirl within a single, hanging droplet.
    Chemical reactions swirl within a single, hanging droplet.
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  • Strata of Starlings

    Strata of Starlings

    Starlings come together in groups of up to thousands of birds for the protection of numbers. These flocks form spellbinding, undulating masses known as murmurations, where the movement of individual starlings sends waves spreading from neighbor to neighbor through the group. One bird’s effort to dodge a hawk triggers a giant, spreading ripple in the flock.

    To capture the flowing nature of the murmuration, photographer and scientist Kathryn Cooper layers multiple images of the starlings atop one another. The birds themselves become pathlines marking the murmuration’s motion. The final images are surprisingly varied in form. Some flocks resemble a downpour of rain; others the dangling branches of a tree. (Image credit: K. Cooper; via Colossal)

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  • “Flowing Kelp”

    “Flowing Kelp”

    This CUPOTY-shortlisted photo by Sigfrido Zimmerman shows giant kelp drifting in the current. At the base of each blade is an inflated bladder that helps keep the algae buoyant. The blades themselves are furrowed on their surface, with patterns reminiscent of sand ripples. Though giant kelp can grow to as large as 60 meters, the species lives in constant flux, pushed and pulled by the currents that run along its length. (Image credit: S. Zimmerman/CUPOTY; via Colossal)

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