When a car drives over a leaf-strewn autumn road, it pulls leaves up with its passage. This tendency to drag fluid along when an object passes is called entrainment, and Keep reading
Tag: entrainment
Understanding Wildfire
Wildfires are an ongoing challenge in the western United States, where droughts and warmer conditions have combined with a century of fire suppression to form perfect conditions for monstrous fires. It’s 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
The Shape of Splashes
When a wedge falls into a pool, it creates a distinctive, doubly-curved splash. Here’s how it works. When the front of the wedge first enters the water, it creates a Keep reading
Entrained
When an object hits water whether it draws air in with it depends on its shape, impact speed, and surface characteristics. In this experiment, though, there’s a bit of a Keep reading
Fighting a Viscous World
Vaucheria is a genus of yellow-green algae (think pond scum), and some species within this genus reproduce asexually by releasing zoospores. Once mature, the zoospore has to squeeze out of a Keep reading
Eroding Candy
When you pop a hard candy in your mouth, you probably don’t give much thought to the fluid dynamics involved in dissolving it. The series above shows a hard candy Keep reading
Hairy Surfaces Keep Skin Dry
Big animals like whales and sea lions stay warm in cold waters by having thick layers of insulating blubber. But smaller mammals, like beavers and sea otters, have a different Keep reading
Martian Dust Devil
This photo from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter stares almost straight down a dust devil on Mars. Like their earthbound brethren, Martian dust devils form when the surface is heated by 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