This lovely video from Ruslan Khasanov showcases the beautiful interplay of surface tension, diffusion, and immiscibility in common fluids. With soy sauce, oil, ink, soap, and a little gasoline, he creates a mesmerizing world of color and motion. It’s a great reminder of the wonders that populate our daily lives, if we just look closely enough to see them. (Video credit: R. Khasanov; via Wired; submitted by Trevor)
Tag: fluids as art
Bouncing in Lockstep
Droplets of silicone oil bounce on a pool of the same thanks to the vibration provided by a loudspeaker. Each droplet’s bounce causes ripples in the pool and the interference between these ripples fixes the droplets in lockstep with one another. As long as the vibration continues to feed the thin layer of air that separates the droplets from the pool during each bounce and no impurities break the surface tension at the interface, the droplets will bounce indefinitely on their liquid trampoline. Such systems can be used to observe quantum-mechanical behavior like wave-particle duality on a macro-scale. (Photo credit: A. Labuda and J. Belina)
“Perpetual Puddle Vortex Experiment”
Anthony Hall’s “Perpetual Puddle Vortex Experiment” is an intriguing display of several physical mechanisms. What looks like a puddle is actually a vortex constantly sucking fluid down a hole in the table. The liquid is re-circulated into the puddle so it never disappears. The table itself is treated to be hydrophobic, causing the distinctive curvature and large contact angle of the puddle’s rim. The oils mixed in float on top, creating patterns of foam that visualize the swirling motions of the fluid as the vortex pulls it in. (Video credit and submission by: A. Hall)
“Liquid Jewel”
Just a reminder that today is your last chance to participate in our reader survey. If you haven’t had a chance yet to fill it out, please do. The data are very important to us, not just for this site, but for improving science outreach online in general. Thank to those who have filled out the survey and especially those who left suggestions. You guys have some great ideas!
Today’s image is from artist Fabian Oefner’s “Liquid Jewel” series, featuring paint-filled balloons moments after rupture. Oefner has several series displaying physical forces as visual media, including the previously featured “Black Hole” and “Millefiori” photos. (Photo credit: F. Oefner)
Bursting Bubble
Originally posted: 24 Aug 2011 That soap bubbles burst in the blink of an eye is a pity considering how fascinating their disappearing act is. This photo set from photographer Richard Heeks captures the bubbles mid-burst. Once the bubble’s film is breached, surface tension rips the smooth film back like a broken balloon, causing the liquid that used to be part of the bubble to erupt into droplets. (Photo credit: Richard Heeks)
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Soap Film Butterfly
Originally posted: 14 Jan 2011 This gorgeous butterfly-like double spiral roll takes place on a horizontal soap film. The foil (seen top center) inserted in the film flaps back and forth. Each time the foil changes direction a vortex forms at the tip and gets advected away. The vortices stretch and distort in the roll, but if you look at the photograph closely, you’ll see the tiny shed vortices persisting throughout the roll structure. The bright colors that make this flow visible are due to interference patterns related to the local thickness of the film. (Photo credit: T. Schnipper et al.)
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Happy Birthday, FYFD!
Today marks the third birthday of FYFD, and it’s been a pretty crazy ride so far. Three years ago, I would have never predicted a blog about fluid dynamics could gain over 170,000 followers. (Thanks for proving me wrong!) As part of my efforts to continue FYFD’s science outreach, I am conducting a reader survey. My goals are to learn about FYFD’s reader demographics and to solicit advice for future improvements to the site. Please take a few moments to participate!
The FYFD archives contain more than 800 posts. As part of our birthday celebration this week, we’ll take a trip back through the archives to revisit some of my favorites. Stay tuned, and don’t forget to fill out the survey! Thanks for helping make FYFD a success. (Photo credit: Unknown photographer/The Paper Wall)
Fluids Round-up – 13 July 2013
Prepare yourselves for lots of links in today’s fluids round-up!
- Longtime FYFD favorite Mark Stock (see here, here, and here) and his collaborator James Susinno have unveiled a new interactive art piece, “Everything is Made of Atoms” that utilizes some impressive real-time fluids simulation. NVIDIA’s blog has some details on the computing.
- ScarbsF1 takes a detailed look at the F-duct used to stall an F1 car’s rear wing to reduce drag. (submitted by Vinnie)
- Just in time for summer fun, National Geographic talks about the physics of water slides.
- SpaceX’s reusable Grasshopper rocket has set a new altitude test of over 1000 ft. Check out this feat of aerodynamic control over at io9.
- Stanford engineers are using high-speed video of birds in the wild to study the mechanics of flapping flight. If you check out their video, you’ll notice how the birds rotate their wings as they flap in order to maximize lift throughout the flapping cycle. (via io9)
- Speaking of io9, they highlighted a couple of great examples of meteorological fluid dynamics recently: roll clouds and water spouts.
- New research suggests that thresher sharks may whip their tails quickly enough to produce cavitation-induced shockwaves to stun their prey. If so, they join the pistol and mantis shrimp in utilizing this technique for hunting.
- If you’re looking for some casual games, Liquid Sketch is a fun fluids puzzle game for iOS (submitted by Keri B)
- Finally, congratulations to Toronoto’s AeroVelo for capturing the AHS Sikorsky Prize with their human-powered helicopter. Check out this video from their historic flight (submitted by Chris R).
(Photo credit: AeroVelo)
“Adrift”
Sometimes the time scales of a flow can mask its similarities to other flows. Simon Christen’s “Adrift,” a video of timelapsed fog in the San Francisco Bay area, shows just how these low clouds undulate and flow over the land the way a stream of water flows over and around stones. From the flow of gases in a stellar nursery down to the channels of a lab-on-a-chip, the same physics governs fluids everywhere, and there are always similarities to be found and exploited in our efforts to understand and explain fluid dynamics. (Video credit: S. Christen; via io9)
Hydrophobia
Hydrophobic literally means water-fearing, and, once a surface is treated with a hydrophobic coating, the effect on water droplets is stark. The tendency of the non-polar hydrophobic molecules to repel the polar water molecules leads to high contact angles – which make the droplets almost spherical as they glide along the surface. The droplets dance across the surface, colliding and bouncing and coalescing. (Video and submission credit: M. Bell)
