Browse Physics

Researchers apply a new experimental approach to visualize the turbulent motion of swimming bacteria and propose a minimal model that captures their observations.

Confirmation that interacting magnetic plasma waves can generate “daughter” waves of a higher frequency supports the current picture of how turbulence leads to heat in astrophysical plasma.

With a simple ball and stick model, theorists explain how the two flagella on a swimming alga become synchronized.

Fluidlike folding instabilities of solid surfaces complicate the machining of metals to perfection

Experimental models of astrophysical and planetary dynamos have been studied in the laboratory and generate magnetic fields with new geometries.

Observation of shallow water motion provides a remarkably good way to simulate the shock wave instabilities that occur in exploding stars.

Two new experiments on fluid turbulence have attained conditions needed to establish asymptotic scalings for turbulent transports of heat and angular momentum.

A conceptual framework that describes the fluidlike flow of dry granular materials also works for particles suspended in a liquid.

A new electrostatic levitation study clarifies how the strings and clusters of atoms that appear in a cooling molten liquid affect diffusion.

AFM experiments suggest the long lifetime of surface nanobubbles is due to a balanced influx and outflux of gas molecules.

The dramatic speed-up of fluid flow in a drying drop of a colloidal suspension controls the pattern of order and disorder in the particle stain that is left behind.

Advances in the technology of microfluidics should make it possible to assemble complex structures out of individual particles.

Researchers show how the judicious choice of fluid filler can suppress the turbulent flow that severely hinders the “top-kill” plugging of a blown-out oil well.

Direct measurements show that the fluid flow around swimming microorganisms is more complex than previously thought, with important implications for how they interact and behave.

An alternative to a needle for penetrating cells may be found in the precise and forceful fluid jet created by two bubbles expanding and collapsing in tandem.

Though often ignored, the normal component of a superfluid reveals much about turbulence in a two-fluid system.

Experiments now quantitatively confirm the standard model of electrokinetics, in which electric fields drive the flow of electrolytes, potentially leading to better sensors and biomedical diagnostic devices.

Supersonic jets of air can be produced when a solid object falls into water.

Simulations provide insight into how viscous flow transforms the shapes of red blood cells, which may influence their physiological properties.

How freak or rogue waves form in the ocean is not well understood, but new investigations suggest a mechanism for these waves that may also allow formation of high-intensity pulses in optical fibers.