"We just made a bubble ring without the bubble!"
December 9, 2014 1:54 PM   Subscribe

Crazy pool vortex! Dianna, a science outreach coordinator for UCSD, has a video demonstrating and explaining cool vortex behavior in a swimming pool. She has other videos linked from her website physicsgirl.org. (vortices, previously)
posted by rmd1023 (12 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
previously from Physics Girl
posted by XMLicious at 2:06 PM on December 9, 2014 [2 favorites]


Awesome. Makes me miss my outdoor educator days. Wonderful modeling of curiosity brought to the everyday world.
posted by Miko at 2:07 PM on December 9, 2014


XMLicious: Oh, cool! I'd missed that she'd had a previous video on the blue. Thanks for the link!
posted by rmd1023 at 2:09 PM on December 9, 2014


Okay, I was nodding and learning and then she added the dye to one of the vortexes AND IT BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. A++!
posted by eamondaly at 2:26 PM on December 9, 2014 [15 favorites]


Mom has a pool (that's sadly closed for the winter). I'll have to show the nieces and nephews this trick next Spring!
posted by xingcat at 2:29 PM on December 9, 2014


The optics term for the patterns of light which appear on the bottom of a swimming pool is evidently caustics. Since the turn of the century this Swedish guy has been making a nifty little Windows tool that allows you to experiment and generate still and video caustics patterns. I'm not clear on whether the current version is free but here's a link on his site to an old one that was.
posted by XMLicious at 2:31 PM on December 9, 2014 [4 favorites]


Cool! Officially learned something totally interesting and relatable today...!
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 3:17 PM on December 9, 2014


Very neat! Now I just need to scale the vortices up so they can cross the entire Pacific and swallow ships...
posted by happyroach at 3:29 PM on December 9, 2014


In for the Dye.

I was all, oh, cool little traveling whirlpools and then she drops the dye in: Boom, mind blown.
posted by Freen at 3:51 PM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


So cool! So cool!
posted by beagle at 5:50 PM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


What the...? I saw Interstellar the other day, and then there were those giant waves on the black hole planet and then I read about them and then Kip Thorne said, Actually they weren't waves, but solitons, but that was too technical to put in the movie, and I was like, Oh yeah, solitons, I wonder if there are any good videos of solitons, and then I found a good video of solitons, and then i saw on the sidebar a video of girl holding a plate for some reason, and i thought, What the heck? it don't cost nothing to click, and then i and clicked and then GET OUT OF MY MIND
posted by Zerowensboring at 9:45 PM on December 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


Mind. Blown.

Incidentally, the owner of the pool is lucky that the demonstration was by Physics Girl. Physics Boy would have colored the vortices by peeing in them.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:33 PM on December 10, 2014


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