Imagine that you partially fill a horizontal cylinder with a viscous fluid, like corn syrup or honey. If that cylinder is still, the fluid will simply pool along the bottom. Keep reading
Tag: free surface
Typhoon Neoguri
Astronaut Reid Wiseman has been posting photos of Typhoon Neoguri in his Twitter feed this week. From our perspective on the ground, it’s easy to forget how three-dimensional the typhoons Keep reading
Spinning Polygons
Nature is full of surprising behaviors. If one imagines putting a bucket of water on a rotating plate and spinning it, one would expect the water’s free surface to take Keep reading
Shark-Tooth Instability
A viscous fluid inside a horizontally rotating circular cylinder forms a shark-tooth-like pattern along the fluid’s free surface. This is one of several patterns observed depending on the fluid’s viscosity Keep reading