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Bang But No Splash

Posted by Hemos on from the scientific-progress-goes-spash dept.

BishopBerkeley writes "When a drop of ethanol is dropped on a surface at low pressures (1/5 atmosphere or less), it makes no splash. Science offers a brief synopsis and fascinating pictures of the phenomenon. The results seem to confirm the (perhaps counterintuitive) prediction that more viscous liquids are more likely to splash, not less likely . Links to the researchers' home page at U of Chicago (as of now, the site is timing out) and pdf version of the article on arxiv can be found on the Science page also."

3 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. We know quarks, but not this... by Psychic+Burrito · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't it amazing that we're investigating quarks but haven't yet fully understood the properties of athmosphere and vacuum? We could have found those phenomena 400 years ago, but no...

    Makes one wonder what else the laws of physics are hiding from us yet... and whether we have really tried to analyse physics systematically enough.

    1. Re:We know quarks, but not this... by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Isn't it amazing that we're investigating quarks but haven't yet fully understood the properties of athmosphere and vacuum? We could have found those phenomena 400 years ago, but no...
      I'm not sure this is new. A housemate (who worked in a dairy) told me many years ago that milk is transported in vaccuum tankers to avoid it arriving as butter.
      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. As Dave Barry pointed out.... by MemeRot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We invented nuclear bombs before we invented intermittent wipers for cars. Progress is never a smooth line.