Acoustic levitation and optical tweezers both use waves — of sound and light, respectively — to trap and control particles. Water waves also have the power to move and capture Keep reading
Tag: capillary waves
A Musical Splatter
High-speed video is wonderful for appreciating fluid motion in ways we can’t on our own. In this video from Warped Perception, we see what happens when a vibrating tuning fork Keep reading
Making Waves in Cold Atoms
If you take a glass of water and tap on the side of it, you’ll generate waves on the water’s surface. The form of the waves depends on surface tension Keep reading
A Star Drop
There are many ways to make a droplet oscillate in a star-shape – like vibrating its surface or using acoustic waves to excite it – but these methods involve externally Keep reading
A Drip’s Vortex
Drip food coloring into water and you can often see a torus-shaped vortex ring after the drop’s impact. That vortex rings form during droplet impact has been well known for Keep reading
Water Skiing Beetles
Waterlily beetles employ an unusual method of getting around: they skim across the water surface. The beetles are mostly covered in tiny hairs that help make their body hydrophobic (water-repellent) Keep reading
Swirling Pollen
This photo captures the chaotic mixing present in a simple puddle. Pine pollen strewn across the puddle’s surface acts as tracer particles, revealing some of the motion of the underlying Keep reading
Reversing Time
Waves contain lots of information. They are also time invariant, which means that they will behave the same regardless of whether time moves forward or backward. This isn’t a property Keep reading
Diffraction
Wave phenomena can sometimes be a little difficult to wrap one’s head around. In this video, Mike from The Point Studios explains wave diffraction and why opening a window can Keep reading
Water-Based Tractor Beam
Researchers in Australia have demonstrated a “tractor beam” capable of manipulating floating objects from a distance using surface waves on water. And, unlike some research, you can try to replicate Keep reading