FYFD

Tag: fluids as art

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    Auroras From Space

    NASA has released a jaw-dropping new compilation of Earth’s auroras viewed from the International Space Station. It’s available in up to 4K resolution, and I heartily recommend watching it fullscreen at the highest resolution you can comfortably manage. (To paraphrase: this is ultra high definition – it’s better resolution than real life!) I don’t think I’ve ever seen aurora footage that so clearly showed the fluid behavior of auroras when viewed from space. This flow-like quality is to be expected since the auroras occur due to ionized particles from the solar wind exciting atoms in our upper atmosphere in a magnetohydrodynamic dance that never gets too old to watch. (Video credit: NASA; via Gizmodo)

    Boston area FYFDers: I’m giving a talk at Harvard tomorrow afternoon on science communication – Wed. April 20th, 4pm, Maxwell Dworkin, G115.

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    Fluids Round-up

    Time for another look at some of the best fluids content out there. It’s the fluids round-up – with a special focus this week on oceans!

    – Ryan Pernofski spent two years filming the ocean in slow motion with his iPhone to make the short film “Slowmocean” seen above. It’s a gorgeous ode to the beauty of breaking waves.

    – Oceans with higher salinity than Earth’s could drive global circulation that would make exoplanets more hospitable to life.

    – Speaking of alien oceans that could harbor signs of life, there’s discussion afoot of how future missions to icy moons like Europa or Enceladus could collect samples from plumes ejected from beneath the ice.

    – Wind and waves make harsh, erosive environments. This photo essay from SFGate shows how greatly the sands of Pacifica shift over time. (submitted by Richard)

    Bonuses:

    – New research explores how Martian mountains may have been carved out by the wind.

    – Ever listened to an orchestra made from ice? You should! Learn about Tim Linhart, who builds and maintains ice instruments. (submitted by ashketchumm)

    – MIT has demonstrated a new 3D-printing technique that allows for printing liquid and solid parts simultaneously, allowing would-be creators to rapid-prototype hydraulically-driven robotics.

    Even more bonus bonus!

    – ICYMI, the new FYFD video made Gizmodo!

    If you’re a fan of FYFD, please consider becoming a patron. As a bonus, you’ll get access to this weekend’s planetary science webcast!

    (Video credit: R. Pernofski; via Flow Visualization; Pluto image credit: NASA/APL)

  • Blowing Through a Straw

    Blowing Through a Straw

    As kids, most of us got in trouble at some point for blowing through a straw into our nearly-empty drinks. What you see here is a consequence of such misbehavior, though in this case the fluid is silicone oil and the straw is a metal needle (not shown) through which helium is continuously injected beneath the liquid surface. Depending on the angle of the straw, different behaviors are observed, as seen in this video. The photo above shows an intermediate regime, in which tiny jets form at the surface and eject a stream of drops. Each drop sails in a little parabolic arc and briefly bounces on the surface, like the drops on the right, before coalescing into the pool. (Image credit: J. Bird and H. Stone; video)

  • Rotating Jet

    Rotating Jet

    This photo, one of the winners of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) annual photography contest, shows a rotating viscoelastic jet. Rotating liquid jets are common to many manufacturing processes, and their sometimes-wild appearance comes from a balance of gravitational forces and centrifugal force against surface tension. But because this fluid contains a small amount of polymer additive, surface tension has the additional aid of some elasticity to help hold the jet together and keep the globules and ligaments you see from flying off. As centrifugal forces fling the fluid outward, it stretches the polymer chains within the fluid, and they pull back against that tension like a stretched rubber band. To see some of the other contest winners–including other fluids entries!–check out the Guardian’s run-down. (Image credit and submission: O. Matar et al., ICL press release)

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    Webcast Teaser Reel

    Saturday I topped off a week of water-walking physics by holding a webcast with Professor Tadd Truscott and PhD student Randy Hurd of The Splash Lab. We had an absolutely blast talking about skipping balls, aesthetics and art, sailing, STEM outreach, and much more. The video above is a short teaser for the webcast – you can watch the full hour here. There are demos, a lab tour, and even a chance to learn about how I do FYFD. If you’d like to see or take part in future webcasts, you can do so by becoming an FYFD patron! (Video credit: FYFD)

  • Turbulent Convection

    Turbulent Convection

    These golden lines reveal the complexity of turbulent convective flow. They come from a numerical simulation of turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection, a situation in which fluid trapped between two plates is heated from below and cooled from above. This situation would typically create convection cells similar to those seen in clouds or when cooking. Inside these cells, warm fluid rises to the top, cools, and sinks down along the sides. With large enough temperature differences, instabilities will occur and cause the flow to become turbulent so that the clear structure of convection cells breaks down into something more chaotic. Such is the case in this simulation. This visualization shows skin friction on the bottom (heated) plate in a flow of turbulently convecting liquid mercury. The bright lines are areas with large velocity changes at the wall, an indication of high shear stress and vigorous convective flow. (Image credit: J. Scheel et al.; via Gizmodo)

  • Psychedelic Cymatics

    Psychedelic Cymatics

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    Cymatics are the visualization of vibration and sound. Here photographer Linden Gledhill has taken a simple speaker vibrating a dish of water and turned it into some incredible art. When you vibrate liquids like water up and down, it disturbs the usually flat air-water interface and creates waves on the surface. These Faraday waves are a standing wave pattern that differs depending on which sound is being played. By combining the wave patterns with LED lighting and strobe effects, Gledhill creates some remarkable images that combine sound, light, and fluid dynamics all in one. If you watch the video (make sure to hit the HD button!), you’ll see the patterns in motion and hear the sounds used to generate them. In the last clip (around 0:19), he’s added glitter to the set-up, which highlights the circulation within the vibrating fluid. As you can see, there are strong recirculating regions in each lobe of the pattern, but other areas, like the center region are almost entirely stationary. You can see more photos from the project in his Flickr feed. Special thanks to Linden for letting me post the video of his work, too! (Video and image cred

    its and submission: L. Gledhill)

    If you enjoy FYFD, please consider becoming a patron to help make sure the Internet keeps getting its daily dose of fluid dynamics!

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    Freezing Soap Bubbles

    I’m not a winter person, but there’s something almost magical about the way water freezes. From instant snow to snow rollers and weird ice formations to slushy waves, winter brings all kinds of bizarre and unexpected sights. The video above is an artistic look at one of my favorites – freezing soap bubbles. Normally, the thin film of a soap bubble is in wild motion, convecting due to gravity, surface tension differences, and the surrounding air. Such a thin layer of liquid loses its heat quickly, though, and, as ice crystals form, the bubble’s convection and rotation slow dramatically, often breaking the thin membrane. Happily photographer Paweł Załuska had the patience to capture the beautiful ones that didn’t break!  (Video credit: P. Załuska; via Gizmodo)

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    Fluids Round-up

    Here’s to another fluids round-up, our look at some of the interesting fluids-related stories around the web:

    – Above is a music video by Roman Hill that relies on mixing and merging different fluids and perturbing ferrofluids for its visuals as it re-imagines the genesis of life.

    – GoPro takes viewers inside a Category 5 typhoon with 112 mph (180 kph; 50 m/s) winds.

    – Astronaut Scott Kelly demonstrates playing ping pong with a ball of water in space. (via Gizmodo)

    – See fluid dynamics on a global scale with Glittering Blue. (via The Atlantic)

    – To make a taller siphon, you have to find a way to avoid cavitation.

    – Speaking of siphons, Randall Munroe tackles the question of siphoning water from Europa over at What If? (submitted by jshoer)

    – The Mythbusters make a giant tanker implode using air pressure.

    – Sixty Symbols explores how tiny things swim.

    – What happens when you bathe in 500 pounds of putty? Let’s just say that bathing in an extremely viscous non-Newtonian fluid is not recommended. (via Gizmodo)

    (Video credit and submission: R. Hill et al.)

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  • Paint Flying

    Paint Flying

    Paint getting flung from a spinning drill bit can create some incredible art. Here the Slow Mo Guys recreate the effect in high-speed video. What we’re seeing is tug of war between centrifugal force, which tries to fling the paint outward, and internal forces in the paint, which struggle to hold the the fluid together. Primarily, it’s surface tension keeping the fluid together, but, depending on what sort of non-Newtonian fluid the paint may be, there could be other internal forces helping keep the paint intact. In this case, centrifugal force is clearly winning out, though the paint stretches pretty far before it thins enough to break. It would be interesting to see how the balance plays out with the drill bit spinning at a lower RPM. (Image credit: Slow Mo Guys, source)