FYFD

Tag: fluids as art

  • Reflections of the Storm

    Reflections of the Storm

    Fall and winter storms rip Lake Erie with violent waves. Photographer Trevor Pottelberg of Ontario captures the dramatic eruptions of mist and spray from these massive, turbulent waves. It’s amazing how many different characters a wave can take on. Just compare Pottelberg’s waves with those caught by Lloyd Meudell or Ray Collins. It’s almost hard to imagine all of these waves growing from the same wind-driven start. See more from Pottelberg on his website and Instagram. (Image credit: T. Pottelberg; via Colossal)

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    Walking in the Wake

    Flow visualization is an important tool in fluid dynamics, and scientists have many ways to capture and visualize flow information. But our methods are not the only — or even the best — ways to express a flow. Here, engineers teamed up with architects and artists to explore the flow behind an oscillating cylinder. When free to move forward-and-backward the cylinder’s wake takes on three distinctively forms. The team explored many ways to display the wakes — drawings, 3D-printed sculptures, and more — before ultimately building an art installation that lets visitors walk through the wake to experience it. I love the creativity of these interdisciplinary efforts. To see a similar, yet very different, take on the wake of a cylinder, check out this interpretative dance. (Image and video credit: P. Boersma et al.)

  • “Bubbles Experience”

    “Bubbles Experience”

    Acrylic paint, oil, water, and air combine to create ephemeral sculptures in Alberto Seveso’s “Bubbles Experience” series. I love the mixture of shapes he achieves, from large, seemingly-laminar columns to a mist of bubbles, each trailing a painted tail. They’re like tiny, liquid comets. See more from this series here and find more examples of his work in his online portfolio. (Image credit: A. Seveso)

  • Ascending Through Bubbles

    Ascending Through Bubbles

    Photographer Lucie Pollet caught this image of her freediving friend ascending through a plume of bubbles and sunlight. I love the otherworldliness of the image, like the diver is an astronaut in the dark of space. The illumination of the bubbles is spectacular, too, and reminds me of the way penguins use supercavitation to help escape predators. (Image credit: L. Pollet; via Oceanographic Magazine)

  • Beautiful Waves

    Beautiful Waves

    Australian photographer Ray Collins captures some of the most impressively dynamic photographs of ocean waves I’ve ever seen. The textures of the water range from glassy smooth to scaled to violent sprays of droplets. You can easily get lost in every image. For more, check out his website and Instagram. (Image credits: R. Collins; via Colossal)

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    Flow Between Fibers

    Two vertical fibers, with a gap left between them, form a playground for flow in this Gallery of Fluid Motion video. If the fiber spacing is small enough, the flow will form a stable liquid sheet that runs the full length of the fibers. With a little more distance, though, the fluid forms intermittent bridges, whose spacing depends on flow rate. And when the fibers are not perfectly vertical, even more complex flows are possible. I love how a seemingly simple situation begets such complexity! (Image and video credit: C. Gabbard and J. Bostwick)

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    Recreating the Rings of Power Opening

    Everyone loves a good title sequence, especially when they feature neat visuals. Many who watched “The Rings of Power” zeroed in immediately on their use of cymatics — visuals born from the vibrations of sound. In the video above, Steve Mould delves into the physics behind cymatics and recreates patterns similar to those in the show’s opening, which was a mixture of CGI and live action.

    For Tolkien fans, the opening sequence holds additional layers of meaning; in Tolkien’s mythology, the universe is born from song, and many of the patterns shown in the opening — the two trees, Fëanor’s star, and the Silmarils themselves — are drawn directly from Tolkien’s myths. In a way, the opening sequence tells the story of the creation of Arda and the rise of Sauron’s predecessor, Melkor/Morgoth, and all the events that led to the show itself. It’s incredibly cool, both from a physics perspective and a literary one. (Image and video credit: S. Mould)

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    “Crystallizing Epsom Salts”

    Candy-colored crystals emerge from a salty liquid in this macro video of Epsom salt crystallization by Karl Gaff. The video was an honorable mention in the 2022 edition of the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. The wild colors in the video come from illumination with polarized light, which makes the crystals appear different colors depending on the orientation of their atoms. (Image and video credit: K. Gaff; via 2022 Nikon Small World in Motion Competition)

  • The Delta Series

    The Delta Series

    It’s easy in the rush of our daily lives to forget just how dynamic rivers are. In his “Delta Series” conservation photographer Paul Nicklen explores that ever-changing nature from above the Colorado River delta. With the ongoing megadrought in this region and ever-increasing demands for more water, the Colorado no longer flows to the ocean. It trickles its way to a tired end near Baja, Mexico, where its last gasp is not enough to sustain ecosystems that relied on the river’s irrigation long before us. Nicklen’s work is a beautiful portrait of the fractal, tree-like patterns of a slowing river. Find more of Nicklen’s work on his website and Instagram. (Image credit: P. Nicklen; via Colossal)

  • A Comet’s Tail Swept Away

    A Comet’s Tail Swept Away

    On Christmas Day 2021, Comet Leonard put on a show in our skies. Though the comet was a pale streak to the naked eye, photographer Gerald Rhemann caught a striking event: the moment part of the comet’s tail disconnected from its body. The solar wind swept the comet’s gas and dust away. Though I’ve talked about the fluid dynamics of comets before, this image is the most stunning example I’ve seen. It’s no wonder that it won the top prize at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. (Image credit: G. Rhemann; via Colossal; see also APOTY)