When droplets coalesce, they perform a wiggly dance, gyrating as the capillary waves on their surface interfere. When the droplets have matching surface tensions, like the two water droplets in Keep reading
Tag: capillary waves
Surf’s Up!
Inspired by honeybees and their ability to surf on capillary waves of their own making, researchers have developed SurferBot, a low-cost, untethered, vibration-driven surf robot. Built on a simple 3D-printed Keep reading
Jets Beneath Leidenfrost Drops
When a droplet impacts, it’s not unusual for converging ripples to form an upward jet, like the one seen here. But under the right circumstances, jets can form downward, too. Keep reading
Captured by Waves
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
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