From the YouTube post:
Physicists Ana Claudia Barbosa Aguiar and Peter Read of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom performed the experiment depicted in this video. Using a 30-liter cylinder of water placed on a slowly rotating table they created an artificial "jet stream" by employing a much smaller and much faster rotating ring inside the main cylinder. By introducing fluorescent dye into the artificial "jet stream" they discovered that stable eddies formed and became stronger over time eventually forming stable regular polygonal shapes with each eddy located at a vertex. Also, in varying the rate of rotation of the large cylinder with respect to the small ring, they discovered that the larger the relative difference in rotation rates the less sides the resulting polygon had.
15 Comments
TheFreakImages of the Hexagon located at Saturn's pole can be viewed here:
Saturn's Polar Hexagon
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reiwan*spacy
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shuacI can hear the Chridiots now: "doesn't change the fact that god put it there."
GeeSussFreeKOhhhhh neato! That was always so puzzling, who would of thought it was as simple as crossing the streams...Egon was wrong!
YogiWhat ho? What Demonry is this!?
iauiQuick, someone! Add Boards of Canada's song 'Turquoise Hexagon Sun' to the video for background music. (:
Mcboinkenssays...[redacted]
rottenseed>> ^Mcboinkens:
Not to be ignorant, but I would have thought scientists would have discovered this earlier. Is this the first recorded time that this has been done? I mean, obviously I wouldn't connect jet steams of water with Saturn, but it seems like somewhere someone would have tested this before.
This brings up some other interesting topics. Saturn is referred to as a "gas giant," but would the gasses have the same pattern as water? Also, this pattern is 2 dimensional, essentially on a flat surface. The haxagon on Saturn is probably curved, so I wonder how it is formed. Probably a similar concept, with the center gas rotating faster than the outter gas. But I am a noob in highschool, so I have no idea. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it.
Gas is a fluid...water is a fluid. The both fit into fluid-dynamics so they should follow the same pattern. It will work in 3 dimensions as long as you have ring of slower moving fluid with a circle of quicker moving fluid inside of it, I'd imagine. Just so long as there isn't anything going on above or below the pattern that would disrupt the "jet stream".
Oh and about it being "curved"...who knows. Saturn's might be a planar cross-section. Another possibility is it IS curved but the size of the phenomenon compared to its curvature makes the curvature negligible.
GeeSussFreeKThough, fluids don't compress so they don't behave exactly the same, but they are rather similar.
rottenseed>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Though, fluids don't compress so they don't behave exactly the same, but they are rather similar.
liquids don't compress, gases do. Liquids and gases are fluids in different phases. If you compress a gas enough, or you cool it down enough, most of them will become liquid. And if you lower the pressure or heat up a liquid enough, liquids will turn into a gas! But for the most part their dynamics (the way they move) can be quantified by the same set of rules.
GeeSussFreeKYa, I love the stories of how Leonardo crafted his wings using water streams to develop his wing dynamics...smarty smart pants right there
jwraycool!
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