ooblick magick

[nibot]

We all know that cornstarch + water (otherwise known as ooblick) is amazing stuff. However, these guys in texas at the center for nonlinear dynamics have taken it to a new level. If nothing else, you should check out the paper and definitely the movie. I wonder if this could be repeated just using a loudspeaker and function generator? Yet another reason to procrastinate on studying for finals!

[edit: you're too late! I guess the movie was "slashdotted," as it's no longer available from their web page. )-: edit2: nevermind, they fixed it.]

[edit3: here's an experiment with solitons that you can do on the surface of a pool: Falaco Solitons. Check out the paper gr-qc/0101098 in arXiv. "String theorists take note, for the structure consists of a pair of topological 2-dimensional rotational defects in a surface of discontinuity, globally connected and stabilized by a 1 dimensional topological defect or string."]

On another note, I'm curious how much of antenna theory can be co-opted to make antennas for sound. A yagi for sound seems a bit unlikely, but parabolic reflectors certainly work, and it seems that there ought to be some magic with cavity resonators.

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I don't think the acceleration is important.

whoops -- I mean that the exact value is probably not important. But there are critical values of the acceleration.. the whole thing here is that the fluid is nonlinear, so acc is important.