Everyone has watched a flag flutter in the breeze, but you may not have given much thought to it. One of the earliest scientists to consider the problem was Lord Keep reading
Tag: flags
Schooling in Soap Films
In sports, flocks of birds, and schools of fish, we’re accustomed to thinking that the followers get an aerodynamic or hydrodynamic advantage over the leaders, but this may not always Keep reading
Inside a Popping Bubble
Popping a soap bubble is more complicated than what the eye can see. In high-speed video, we find that the action is very directional, with the soap bubble film pulling Keep reading
Flapping Flags
Sometimes structural forces and aerodynamic forces combine to produce instabilities. One of the most common and familiar examples of this, a flag flapping in the breeze, remains extremely complex to Keep reading
Flapping Flags
The flapping of flexible objects like flags have long fascinated mankind. The figure above from Shelley and Zhang 2011 shows several possible flapping states. In (a) a thread immersed in Keep reading
Drafting Flags
Wired Science has published a gallery of fluid dynamics photos and videos, several of which have been featured here previously. There’s some neat stuff there, well worth checking out. # Keep reading