In competition diving, athletes chase a rip entry, the nearly splash-less dive that sounds like paper tearing. Part of a successful rip dive comes in the impact, where divers try Keep reading
Tag: cavity
Surviving Rainfall
Water striders spend their lives at the air-water boundary, skittering along this interfacial world. But what happens when falling rain destroys their flat existence? That’s the question that motivated today’s Keep reading
Shaking on Impact
When objects impact water with enough speed, they create a smooth-walled, air-filled cavity around and behind them. Here, the impacting object is one with some give, like a spring. The Keep reading
The Best of FYFD 2023
A fresh year means a look back at what was popular last year on FYFD. Usually, I give a numeric list of the top 10 posts, but this year the Keep reading
Bouncing Bullets Off Water
With the right shot, it’s possible to skip a bullet off water, as shown in this video from the Slow Mo Guys. The angle of the bullet relative to the Keep reading
Diving Together
Two spheres dropped into water next to one another form asymmetric cavities. A single ball’s cavity is perfectly symmetric, and so are two spheres’, provided they are far enough apart. Keep reading
Listening to the Sizzle
The sizzle of frying food is familiar to many a cook, and that sound actually conveys a surprising amount of information. In this study, researchers suspended water droplets in hot Keep reading
Entraining Bubbles
If you stand on a bridge and watch the current flow past pylons below, you’ll see disturbances marking the wakes. Dragging a rod – or an oar – at a high Keep reading
Reducing the Force of Water Entry
As anyone who’s jumped off the high board can tell you, hitting the water involves a lot of force. That’s because any solid object entering the water has to accelerate Keep reading
Oil-on-Water Impact
Although many people have studied droplet impacts over the years, there’s been remarkably little work done with oil-on-water impacts. One of the things that makes this situation different is that the oil Keep reading