Psychedelic effects created in a small pan of coloured water.
Science is a funny thing, and physicists especially have discovered some pretty strange effects and forces that interact with matter that quite literally is all around us.
Physicists at the University of Technology of Tehran in Iran have discovered yet another effect - this one with a curious but incredibly entertaining effect.
They placed a shallow, square pan of water in the center of two perpendicular electric fields, one external to the pan and another internally creating a voltage flowing across the water itself.
These two electric fields intersected at right angles to each other, and acted just like a spoon stirring a bowl of soup - began to rotate the liquid.
At first they didn't have any real idea about why or even how this effect was caused, but they had a decent control over it through changing the effects of the electric fields.
The solution to this problem was found a year later by the cooly named Vlad Vladimirov, who delved into the effect and explained how it was achieved:
They say the flow is generated at the edge of the cell where the electric field crosses the (dielectric) boundary between the water and the cell container. The change in field sets the water flowing along the boundary. Crucially, this flow is opposite on the other side of the cell and this is what sets up the circular flow.
It's a fascinating effect, and the science behind it is very cool, but what about the effects? Well luckily those nerdly boffins thought of that and took a series of eight short videos showing off the effects very plainly - as well as seeming like some crazy drug-induced trip at the same time.
Head over to their site to check out the videos, but don't get too drawn in by the spinning colours, or else you'll...you- ooh pretty colours.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012