In nature, we often find turbulence mixed with convection, meaning that part of the flow is driven by temperature variation. Think thunderstorms, wildfires, or even the hot, desiccating winds of Keep reading
Tag: 2019GOFM
Storm Eyes and Mushrooms in a Drop
In industry, drying droplets often have many components: a liquid solvent, solid nanoparticles, and dissolved polymers. The concentration of that last component — the polymers — can have a big Keep reading
Simulating Better Breaking Waves
In the ocean, breaking waves trap air into bubbles that then cluster into foam, but conventional simulations don’t capture this foaminess. For bubbles to cluster into foam, there has to Keep reading
Why Watering Globes Are Hard to Fill
If you’re leaving home for a few days and want to keep your houseplants happy, you may have tried using a watering globe – those glass bulbs with long stems Keep reading
Crystalline Critters
In 5th grade, I grew crystals by evaporating solutions of salt water from miniature pie tins. The results were white, boxy crystals whose size depended on how much salt I’d Keep reading
The Explosive Vaporization Derby
When pressurized, liquids can be superheated to temperatures well above their normal boiling point. When the pressure is released, the liquid will start boiling, sometimes explosively. In this video, researchers Keep reading
Growing Metal Fingers
Eutectic gallium-indium alloy is a room-temperature liquid metal with an extremely high surface tension. Normally, that high surface tension would keep it from spreading easily. But once the metal oxidizes, Keep reading
Mixing Leidenfrost Drops
When placed on a very hot, patterned surface, droplets will self-propel on a layer of their own vapor. Here, researchers use this to drive droplets to coalesce so that they Keep reading
The Birth of a Liquor
A water droplet immersed in a mixture of anise oil and ethanol displays some pretty complicated dynamics. Its behavior is driven, in part, by the variable miscibility of the three Keep reading
Collapsing Inside a Soap Film
There’s a common demonstration of surface tension where a loop of string is placed in a soap film and then the film inside the loop is popped, making it suddenly Keep reading