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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."

5 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We know quarks, but not this... by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, to be fair to the upper crust Elizabethan gentleman scientists of yore, photography wouldn't be invented for another two hundred years, and high speed emulsions for some decades after that. Now those 20th century scientists -- thats a different kettle of fish.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Here's the picture by hairykrishna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The pdf link's a little slow and I'm sure people don't want to register for the article so I upped the image onto my website:

    http://www.hairykrishna.f2s.com/droplet.html

    --
    "Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
  3. Re:We know quarks, but not this... by nameer · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This one has me stumped:

    A small balloon is inflated in atmospheric pressure until it pops. The resulting fragments are a few large pieces of latex.

    A simmilar balloon is inflated by tying it off, placing it in a bell jar, and evacuating the jar. When the balloon pops, the result is a shredded mess of many small pieces of latex.

    The guy at the museum who showed this demonstration couldn't explain to me why it did this. He just kept saying, "It pops everywhere at once". Okay, but why?

    --
    "Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
  4. Re:We know quarks, but not this... by Idarubicin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It's one of those things that's utterly obvious--after the experiment is done.

    Given no a priori knowledge of this experiment, I could come up with convincing thought experiments and analogies to explain either possible outcome (low viscosity or high viscosity being less likely to splash).

    For example, what happens when a ball of soft putty drops on a surface? It definitely doesn't produce an apparent splash. The "intuitive" interpretation might be, then, that high viscosity liquids are less able to splash, based on our experience with a large, viscous semisolid.

    --
    ~Idarubicin
  5. Distorted Shape by LanceTaylor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I noticed that the drop that made the biggest splash was already distorted before impact. The drop that didn't make a splash was a perfect sphere up until the moment of impact.