Willfully or not, some leaks can under certain circumstances stop themselves. This study explores that notion: “How a Leak Can Stop Itself,” Caroline D. Tally, Heather E. Kurtz, Rose B. Tchuenkam, and Katharine E. Jensen, arXiv:2202.02644, 2023. The authors explain: We often consider how to stop a leak, but here we ask a different question: […]
Congratulations to our good friend and colleague Dr. Nicole Sharp, creator of FYFD (which is the grandest fluid dynamics exploration/adventure on the internet), who is now officially statuesque. A statue of her will soon be on display on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in company with statues of some fellow scientists: From March 5 […]
Fluid dynamics research useful in daily life: The researchers who did the research: Akihito Kiyama, Utah State University Rafsan Rabbi, Utah State University Zhao Pan, University of Waterloo Som Dutta, Utah State University John Allen, University of Hawaii Manoa Tadd Truscott, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. (Thanks to Patricia Yang for bringing this […]
Winners of 2019 Ig Nobel Physics Prize showed up to accept the prize, dressed as a wombat, or as pieces of wombat feces (they received the prize for researching and publishing, “How Do Wombats Make Cubed Poo?“). You might have seen them onstage dressed this way in the ceremony video. If you were wondering how […]
Here’s Nicole Sharp talking about a paddleboat ride she took when she was a child. That ride excited Nicole in a way that led to her eventual unusual career. Nicole created and runs FYFD, the most popular fluid dynamics web site in this part of the universe. ABOUT THIS LITTLE VIDEO SERIES—This is part of […]
Here’s Nicole Sharp talking about the space station that, when she was a child, excited Nicole in a way that led to her eventual unusual career. Nicole created and runs FYFD, the most popular fluid dynamics web site in this part of the universe. ABOUT THIS LITTLE VIDEO SERIES—This is part of a series of […]
ASCII Fluid Dynamics, in music-video form: (Thanks to Mason Porter for bringing this to our attention.)
Building on her earlier fluid-dynamics research about the Boston Molasses Flood, Nicole Sharp made this new video: For more of the history of that flood see Cara Giamo’s “The Boston Molasses Flood Is Worth Taking Seriously” in Atlas Obscura, and Jennifer Ouelette’s “Incredible physics behind the deadly 1919 Boston Molasses Flood” in New Scientist.
A new paper (“A separated vortex ring underlies the flight of the dandelion“) published in Nature tells how dandelion seeds create a vortex that keeps them floating through the skies. This little video shows and tells the story of that: (Thanks to the ever-discovery-filled Cocktail Party Physics for bringing this to our attention.) UPDATE (October […]
Ejecting water from a person’s ear canals is potentially thrilling, for fluid dynamicists and perhaps for the person. New research on the how and why will be presented at a meeting in November: “Acceleration induced water removal from ear canals,” Hosung Kang, Katelee Averett, and Sunghwan Jung, paper (Abstract D5.00007) to be presented at the […]