To coat the interior of a capillary tube, you typically fill the tube with a viscous liquid, then pump air in to displace the liquid, leaving behind a thin film Keep reading
Tag: centrifugal force
Tektites and Spinning Fluids
Tektites, like obsidian, are a naturally-occurring glass formed from molten rock. But tektites are often dumbbell or figure-8-shaped because they form in midair from spinning bits of fluid sent skyward Keep reading
Why Animals Shake Themselves Dry
For many animals, letting themselves air-dry is not an option. They would become hypothermic before their wet fur dried completely. This is why dogs and many other furry mammals shake Keep reading
Spin Cycle
Rotational motion is a great way to break up liquids, as anyone who’s watched a dog shake itself dry can attest. That same centrifugal force is what allows this rotary Keep reading
Happy Valentine’s Day!
To make this heart, photographer Helene Caillaud flung paint off a tool attached to a drill bit, much like Fabian Oefner did in his “Black Hole” series. Caillaud, however, tweaked Keep reading
Testing Waves in High Gravity
Where waves crash and meet, turbulence is inevitable. But exactly how large waves interact — whether in the ocean, in plasma, or the atmosphere — is far from understood. A Keep reading
Spinning Ink Out of Markers
I have to say I’m grateful that my classmates in school never discovered the mess-generating superpower of felt-tipped markers. As the Slow Mo Guys demonstrate here, when you spin or Keep reading
Twirling Liquids
What do you get when you spin a splash? I expect the result is a lot like these whirling fluid structures captured by photographer Hélène Caillaud. I love the fantastical Keep reading
Driving Instabilities with a Twist
Imagine that you want to study how two fluids mix when a lighter fluid is pushed into a denser one. Conceptually, it’s a straightforward situation. It would be like having a Keep reading
Spinning Droplet Galaxies
Water flung from a spinning tennis ball takes on a shape reminiscent of a spiral galaxy. As it detaches, water leaves the surface with both the tangential velocity of the Keep reading