The Hubble archives are full of incredible swirls of cosmic gas and dust, many of which were born in supernovas. Predicting the forms these massive explosions will generate is extremely Keep reading
Tag: Rayleigh-Taylor instability
“Magic Fluids”
In his short film, “Magic Fluids,” Roman De Giuli uses cyan, magenta, and yellow paints to generate a rainbow of macro colors. All the fluid motion you see is a practical Keep reading
Driving Instabilities with a Twist
Imagine that you want to study how two fluids mix when a lighter fluid is pushed into a denser one. Conceptually, it’s a straightforward situation. It would be like having a Keep reading
Granular Instabilities
Granular mixtures show surprising similarities to fluids, even though their underlying physics differ. The latest example of this is a Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability that occurs when heavy particles sit atop lighter Keep reading
Liquid Antispiral
Spiral formations are common in nature, from galaxies to chemical reactions. But most examples in nature rotate such that their arms trail the direction of rotation. Viewed side-on, this makes Keep reading
Using Instabilities for Manufacturing
Manufacturing textured, flexible surfaces can be difficult, but researchers are exploring ways to use fluid dynamical instabilities to make the process easier. They begin with a pourable polymer mixture that Keep reading
Bringing the Stars Home
One of my favorite aspects of fluid dynamics is the way that the same patterns and phenomena appear over and over again – sometimes in the most unexpected places. That’s Keep reading
“Le Temps”
Thomas Blanchard is back with another beautiful music video. This one features ink cascading over various shapes underwater. Lots of tiny mushroom-shaped Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities here caused by the ink’s greater Keep reading
Convection Without Heat
We typically think of convection in terms of temperature differences, but the real driver is density. In the animations above, cream sitting atop a liqueur is undergoing solutal convection – Keep reading
Breaking With a Wave
For rocket combustion and other applications, like watering your lawn with a hose, a stream of fluid may need to be broken up into droplets. While simply spraying a liquid Keep reading