Spreading paint with a brush or with fingers is familiar activity for most people. It’s also similar to processes used in industry for spreading thin layers of paint and other Keep reading
Tag: viscosity
Bubbles in Turbulence
In nature and industry, swarms of bubbles* often encounter turbulence in their surrounding fluid. To study this situation, researchers used numerical simulation to observe bubbles across a range of density, Keep reading
Viscosity and Quantum Mechanics
Viscosity describes a fluid’s resistance to changing its shape. Like surface tension, it’s a fundamental property of a fluid that comes from the interactions between molecules. But viscosity is a Keep reading
Swapping Emulsions
Chemically speaking, oil and water don’t mix. But with a little fluid mechanical effort, it’s possible to make them an emulsion — a mixture of oil droplets in water or Keep reading
Particle-filled Splashes
Adding particles to a liquid can significantly alter its splash dynamics, as shown in this new study. In the first image, a purely-liquid droplet spreads on impact into a thin Keep reading
Studying Active Polymers Using Worms
I’ve covered some odd studies in my time, but this might be the strangest: to understand how active polymers affect viscosity, researchers loaded drunk worms into a rheometer. Active polymers Keep reading
Magma Mixing
Magmas typically consist of a mixture of molten liquid, bubbles, and solid crystals. As they mix, those crystals can sink from one viscous layer into another. To investigate this sort Keep reading
“The Empire of C”
Filmmaker Thomas Blanchard has once again released a beautiful, fluid-filled short to captivate us. Built from paint, oil, and liquid soap, “The Empire of C” feels like it gives viewers a Keep reading
Vortex Dome
Are you staring into the eye of a hurricane or watching the spin of a simple desk toy? Part of the beauty of fluid dynamics is recognizing how similar they Keep reading
Making Waves in Cold Atoms
If you take a glass of water and tap on the side of it, you’ll generate waves on the water’s surface. The form of the waves depends on surface tension Keep reading