Lab experiments and numerical simulations can only take us so far; sometimes there’s no substitute for getting out into the field. That’s why a beach in San Diego turned pink Keep reading
Tag: mixing
Mixing With E. Coli
What happens when a flow meets swimming micro-organisms? Does the flow affect the swimmers? And how do the swimmers affect the flow in turn? Those are the questions behind the Keep reading
Mixing in a Winter Lake
A frozen winter lake can hide surprisingly complex flows beneath its placid surface. Since water is densest at 4 degrees Celsius — just above the freezing point — mixing two Keep reading
Mixing Effectively
Mixing two fluids is a tougher task than you might think. One of my favorite asides from a fluids lecture concerned how to mix fruit into yogurt in an industrial Keep reading
Moving By (Intestinal) Wave
A word of warning: today’s post includes visuals of digestion taking place in (non-human) embryonic intestines. Our bodies rely on waves driven by muscle contractions to move both fluids and Keep reading
Double Diffusive Flow
Diffusion is the tendency for differences in a fluid — in density, temperature, or concentration — to even out over time. Think about a drop of food coloring in a Keep reading
Mixing the Immiscible
Immiscible liquids — like oil and water — do not combine easily. Typically, with enough effort, you can create an emulsion — a mixture formed from droplets of one liquid Keep reading
Fun From the Beach
Here’s a neat bit of fluid dynamics derived from a day at the beach! Our experiment begins with well-mixed (and likely compacted) sand grains and sea water in a bottle. Keep reading
Meeting Without Mixing
When bodies of water meet, they don’t always mix right away. Here we see the confluence of the Back and Hayes Rivers in the Canadian Arctic. The Back River appears Keep reading
Chaotic Mixing in Porous Media
One of the peculiar characteristics of viscous, laminar flows is that they are reversible. Squirt dye into glycerin, stir it one way, then the opposite direction, and the dye returns Keep reading