FYFD

Tag: fluids as art

  • “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement”

    “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement”

    A new interactive installation by the Japanese art collective teamLab uses the movement of visitors to drive vortex motion. Entitled “Moving Creates Vortices and Vortices Create Movement,” the installation uses projectors in a mirror room to create the sensation of an infinite, indoor ocean that’s constantly churned by the paths visitors take. In the absence of motion, the room slowly fades to darkness. The installation is currently in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and will be open until April 15th, 2018. (Image credit: teamLab; via Colossal; submitted by jshoer)

    P.S. – Winter Olympic coverage will start on Monday, February 12th! – Nicole

  • Water Calligraphy

    Water Calligraphy

    Artist Seb Lester creates calligraphy using ink and water, but not in the way you might expect. After writing in water, the artist applies ink a drop at a time, allowing fluid forces to spread it. There are a few effects at play here. Molecular diffusion – the random motion of molecules – can help two fluids mix, but it’s an extremely slow process. The fast, dramatic spread of ink seen in the video is more likely a Marangoni effect. The water and ink have different surface tensions, creating a gradient in surface tension that depends on the relative concentration of the two fluids. Gradients in surface tension create flow, which is why the ink spreads most quickly when it’s applied in an area that’s pure water. For similar physics, check out maze-solving soaps and the title sequence for “Marco Polo”.  (Video and image credit: S. Lester, source; via Gizmodo)

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    “Breathe”

    In black and white, the towering power of a thunderstorm looks almost apocalyptic. Photographer Mike Olbinski’s latest storm timelapse, “Breathe,” features roiling turbulence, distant downpours, and eerie mammatus clouds. Supercell thunderstorms churn and rotate over empty horizons. Billowing cumulus clouds condense from bright skies. Flashes of lightning reveal the outlines of massive thunderheads. It’s a beautiful glimpse of atmospheric fluid dynamics in action, with every texture magnified and enhanced by the stark black and white palette. (Video and image credit: M. Olbinski; via Gizmodo)

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    Water Walking, Exploding Droplets, and Colliding Vortices

    Every year I look forward to the APS DFD conference in November. It brings thousands of researchers together to share the latest in fluid dynamics. So much goes on in those three days that it’s impossible to capture, but last year I teamed up with Tom Crawford and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics to attempt just that. We interviewed 50 researchers on their projects, and we’ll be bringing you their work, in their words, each month leading up to the 2018 APS DFD meeting.

    This first video focuses on some of the awesome entries to the 2017 Gallery of Fluid Motion. Watch to learn about oil droplets that go flying everywhere when you’re cooking, balls that walk on water, the water music of Vanuatu and more! To see the videos we discuss and all the other entries, go to gfm.aps.org. (Video credit: N. Sharp and T. Crawford)

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    The Foggy Grand Canyon

    On occasion in the late fall and early winter, the Grand Canyon can fill with clouds of fog. This occurs when a layer of warm air traps cold, moist air inside the canyon, creating what’s known as a temperature inversion. The trapped air’s moisture condenses into fog, creating the appearance of a cloud sea lapping at the canyon walls. Such inversions often proceed a big snowstorm, as shown in this video. (Video and image credit: H. Mehmedinovic / SKYGLOWPROJECT; via Gizmodo)

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    Singularities

    Black holes, like the collapse of a cavity in a fluid, are a singularity – a point where the mathematical rules we use to describe physical systems break down. No one knows what exists in a black hole, but the short film “Intra” explores one theory – that the exit to a black hole is a white hole, a singularity from which time and space themselves are born. The journey from one to the other is illustrated in the film with CGI visualizations of a black hole (a la Interstellar) and with fluid dynamical sequences depicting diffusion and chemical reactions driving flows. Although no true white holes have ever been observed, there are fluid dynamical analogs for them, namely circular hydraulic jumps, like the one you can make in your kitchen sink!  (Video credit: T. Vanz et al.)

  • Liquid Sunbursts

    Liquid Sunbursts

    Liquid sunbursts and swirling aquatic roses abound in photographer Mark Mawson’s work. Images like these are created from dropping ink into water and photographing it as it diffuses. For the roses, the tank is additionally stirred or spinning to create the vortex-like appearance. Check out his website for more striking images, including more billowing ink, some great splashes and beautiful turbulent mixing between coffee and milk. (Image credit: M. Mawson; submitted by clogwog)

  • Cloud Flows

    Cloud Flows

    When viewed at the right pace, clouds can flow. This timelapse of fog over Mt. Tamalpais State Park near San Francisco shows clouds moving over the hills there. Physically, this flow is an example of a familiar phenomenon known as a hydraulic jump. It happens when a fast-moving flow moves into a region of slower flow. The kinetic energy of the incoming flow gets transferred into potential energy, causing the flow to suddenly rise in height. It can also trigger turbulence, as seen on the right side of the animation. Watch carefully along a river, and you’ll see the same thing happening. Or, if your kitchen sink has a flat bottom, you can create a circular hydraulic jump just by turning on the faucet. You’ll get a region of fast flow right where the water impacts the basin, and a little ways out, you’ll see a circular jump where the water is suddenly taller and slower. That’s a hydraulic jump, too! (Image credit: Nicholas Steinberg Photography, source; submitted by Madi R.)

  • Corrugating Water

    Corrugating Water

    The characteristics of a surface can have a major impact on the form a flow takes. The photo above shows a corrugated, almost pinecone-like water surface. It’s the result of a sheet of water flowing over a surface with alternating bands of hydrophobic (water-repelling) and hydrophilic (water-loving) properties. The water sheet narrows over hydrophobic sections and expands over hydrophilic ones. Gravity, inertia, and surface tension compete to create the overall braided appearance. You can see a top-down view of the flow in the original poster. (Image credit: M. Grivel et al., source)

  • Liquid Sculptures

    Liquid Sculptures

    With patience and timing, one can create remarkable sculptures with fluids. To capture this shot, Moussi Ouissem used two droplets, perfectly timed. The first fell through the soap bubble (which stayed intact thanks to its powers of self-healing) and hit the pool of water. The impact caused a cavity, which then inverted into a Worthington jet. The second drop was timed to impact the column of the jet, creating the saddle-shaped splash seen here. Ripples in the bubble are still visible from the passage of the second drop, and several satellite droplets are signs of the violence of the impacts. (Image credit: M. Ouissem)