Motor Made From Liquid Film

KentuckyFC writes "Last year, a group of Iranian physicists made a puzzling discovery. They placed a thin film of water in a small cell and bathed it in two perpendicular electric fields. To their surprise this caused the water to rotate. They called their device a liquid film motor and posted on the web a cool set of movies showing the phenomenon. The puzzle is this: the electric fields are static, so what's driving the motor? Now another group of physicists has the answer: a complex interaction between the electric field, the cell container and the liquid causes water to move along the cell wall. Crucially, it moves in opposite directions on opposite sides of the cell and so sets up a circular flow. The phenomenon works only when friction and surface tension are significant forces so the effect is entirely scale dependent. That's probably why we haven't seen it before and also why it could have important implications for microfluidic devices such as lab-on-a-chip."

Comments

What a weasel sentence

[SmallFurryCreature]

"I have no doubt that ..."

This invariably means the person has no evidence for the following statement, isn't looking for evidence and doesn't want to hear any evidence and is sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALALA" against anyone trying to argue his point.

It makes religious freaks look reasonable, you want to believe X and so you put yourself beyond any reasonable doubt and make your total unbased assumption into fact.

Nasty.

absolutely wrong

[circletimessquare]

you SHOULD earn a pittance as a university researcher. because you haven't found anything yet. we shouldn't just pay people a lot of money just because they sit in front of a microscope or a chromatograph

however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire

scientific research is like being a prospector. actually it is EXACTLY the same thing as being a prospector: you go out in to a strange unexplored land, you follow your nose and your knowledge of geology, and, with some luck, some good preparation, you make a gold strike. with science, the strange unexplored land is the edges of human knowledge. where is the next big discovery? if your mind is keen enough, and you are lucky to be right at the edge of something huge, you cash out with fame and fortune

plenty of other prospectors meanwhile, go out in the wilderness, and starve to death. why should we pay prospectors up front to go prospecting? some of them might not be very good, some of them might be really good, but are just unlucky to be exploring the wrong land

so it is with university researchers: let them live on ramen noodles and live in tiny apartments. if they find something huge, they will be living the good life soon enough

and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement. every great scientist, no matter how well they are paid (and some ARE paid well, for example: pharmaceutical researchers or petrochemists), knows well enough their value as a scientist, their self-value, pretty much rests on this allegory of the prospector. they can toil in obscurity for decades, and find nothing of substance. or they can pick the one right avenue at a young age, and be known as the next einstein, and be handed a nobel in middle age

this is the nature of science

Re:at least something

[roman_mir]

what are those other things that are coming out of Iran nowadays (you do realize, TODAY?) What, that satellite? Isn't that related to nukes somehow and WMDs? Iran USED to be an oasis of ideas and science about a thousand years ago, today it's all about oil, stoning women who were raped, nukes, killing jews and whatnot. So go into your corner and cry me a river. These are the best news from Iran yet.