Trees, blood vessels, and rivers all follow branching patterns that make their pieces look very similar to their whole. We call this repeating, self-similar shape a fractal, and this Be Keep reading
Tag: fractals
Filling Space
While not directly fluid dynamical, this video from Steve Mould uses water to illustrate mathematical concepts like fractals and space-filling curves. Water, it turns out, does a great job of Keep reading
Marshy Veins
From above, the salt marshes of Alviso Marina County Park look like veins and capillaries in this photo from Tayfun Coskun. The waterways curve and branch, forming fractal patterns only Keep reading
A Fractal Raft From a Spinning Top
File this one under Cool Things I Would Have Never Thought Of. In this video, researchers play around with the flow around a spinning top and end up creating a Keep reading
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 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
Reader Question: Fractals and Turbulence
Reader 3d-time asks: Hi, there is a guy, at my college, who is doing a master’s degree thesis in turbulence. He says he uses fractals and computational methods. Can you Keep reading
Fluids Round-up – 16 November 2013
Time for another fluids round-up. Here are your links: PhysicsBuzz takes a look at the use of plasma actuators to control airflow. Over at Deep Sea News, you can learn about parasitic Keep reading
Instability: Dense Over Light
Here on Earth, placing a dense layer of fluid atop a less dense layer is unstable. Specifically, the situation causes the interface between the two fluids to break down in Keep reading
Fractal Fluids
Part of the beauty of numerical simulation is its ability to explore the physics of a situation that would difficult or impossible to create experimentally. Here the Rayleigh-Taylor instability–which occurs when Keep reading