In his latest video, The Backyard Scientist explores what happens when molten salt (sodium chloride) gets poured into water. As you can see, the results are quite dramatic! He demonstrates Keep reading
Tag: fluid instability
Suppressing Instability
The Rayleigh Taylor instability is a common fluid phenomenon in which the interface between fluids of differing densities becomes unstable. It’s what’s responsible for all those awesome pictures of milk Keep reading
The Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability
The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is a pattern frequently found in nature. It has a distinctive shape, like a series of breaking ocean waves that curl over on themselves to create a Keep reading
Sharkskin Instability
Homemade spaghetti noodles exhibit a roughened surface that’s the result of viscoelastic behavior known as the sharkskin instability. It’s usually observed in the industrial extrusion of polymer plastics. In the Keep reading
Spinning Paint
Fluid dynamical behaviors are often the result of competing forces. Here paint flung from a spinning rod illustrates the effects of adhesion, surface tension, and centrifugal force. In general, surface Keep reading
Oil Chandeliers
What you see above is a composite of images of an oil droplet falling into alcohol from two different heights. The top row of images is from a height of Keep reading
Jupiter and the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability
Jupiter, known for its colorful bands of stormy clouds, is a beautiful subject for fluid dynamics in action. As the planet turns, the cloud bands move at different relative speeds. Keep reading