The world of fluid instabilities is a rich one. Combine fluids with differing viscosities, densities, or flow speeds and they’ll often break down in picturesque and predictable manners. Here, researchers Keep reading
Tag: instability
“Dark Matter”
In “Dark Matter” photographer Alberto Seveso captures billowing black pigment against a bright red backdrop. Seveso excels at capturing the developing turbulence in sinking fluids. I’m always blown away by Keep reading
Paint Ejection
Shaking paint on a speaker cone and filming it in high speed is an oldie but a goodie. Here, artist Linden Gledhill films paint ejection at 10,000 frames per second, Keep reading
Hollow Drops
When a partially-air-filled drop hits a surface, it splashes and rebounds in a complex fashion. This video breaks down the physics of the process. Upon impact, a lamella spreads, eventually Keep reading
Kelvin-Helmholtz Flows Downhill
Gravity currents carry denser fluids into lighter ones, like cold air drifting under your door in winter or dense fogs flowing downhill in San Francisco. Here, researchers visualize the situation Keep reading
“The Dark Days”
“The Dark Days” is the third film in artist Thomas Blanchard’s N-UPRISING series. Like its siblings, this film features plants and insects, along with creeping — and sometimes overwhelming — Keep reading
Icicles and Impurities
In nature, icicles often form horizontal ripples along their outer surface. Researchers found that these shapes only form when impurities are present in the water forming icicles; icicles made from Keep reading
Watery Bullseye
Concentric circles of colorful water float in the frame of photographer Jack Long’s images. At first glance, the liquid sculptures appear to be the splashes from one or more falling Keep reading
Self-Propelled Droplets
Drops of ethanol on a heated surface contract and self-propel as they evaporate. My first thought upon seeing this was of Leidenfrost drops, but the surface is not nearly hot Keep reading
“A Sense of Scale – Reminiscence”
In so much of fluid dynamics, size does not matter. We see the same patterns mirrored across nature from a fuel injection nozzle to galactic clusters. And no one plays Keep reading