Comments on: Vortex smoke ring Collision. Wow!

Vortex smoke ring Collision. Wow!

Mr_Zero — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:01:37 -0800

Two vortex smoke rings colliding. Sounds simple, looks awesome.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:05:33 -0800

You tell the truth, sir.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:06:51 -0800

I can corroborate the above claim.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:08:29 -0800

Here's some good analysis of what's happening.

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:08:29 -0800

Does what it says on the tin. Wow indeed.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:08:43 -0800

I bet Gandalf could do those. Not Bilbo, though. Frickin' halfling poser.

By: bigmusic

bigmusic — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:10:42 -0800

How do I do this at home?

By: @troy

@troy — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:16:06 -0800

sir, the truth is told by you

By: smoke

smoke — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:18:19 -0800

two smoke ring blowers must try this stat!

By: Balisong

Balisong — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:18:31 -0800

I wish my post would come up twice.

By: otolith

otolith — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:18:40 -0800

HAY GUYZ WHAT IF GANDALF OH

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:20:45 -0800

*Yawn* Teach dolphins how to do it...then I'm interested.

By: SpiffyRob

SpiffyRob — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:23:26 -0800

Make: How to Make a Vortex Cannon

By: Lutoslawski

Lutoslawski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:23:50 -0800

neat!

By: Mike Mongo

Mike Mongo — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:28:50 -0800

That's how we make the candy that gives superpowers?

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:34:57 -0800

O O

By: nonspecialist

nonspecialist — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:36:51 -0800

I went "squee!" even more than for the slow loris. Guess that makes me a nerd. REPRESENT!

By: clearly

clearly — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:37:25 -0800

Next time I'm around a hookah, I am going to make this happen.

By: contessa

contessa — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:38:21 -0800

That was TOTALLY WICKED!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:39:30 -0800

Next time I'm around a hookah, I am going to make this happen. You're gonna need more than one. Also really thick smoke. Also two Atlantians with their mighty Sea-Lungs. Also colored smoke.

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:50:37 -0800

Whenever I am tempted to tune out the local math-nerd when he/she goes on and on about quantum mangling and emergent systems and blah blah blah, I see something like this, and start to pay =sharp= attention. I still won't understand it, but I hope they'll take mercy on a sycophant when they achieve singularity and attain godhood.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:54:47 -0800

OK, so that particle effect goes into my next video game. Thanks.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:55:58 -0800

Also, you need me there. I'll bring mine.

By: exhilaration

exhilaration — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:58:00 -0800

Needs hella more HD.

By: jpdoane

jpdoane — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:58:23 -0800

This is one of the cooler things I have ever seen. I would never have guessed that they would interfere with each other like that. I work with fields and waves all the time but the medium I work in (radio waves) is linear, meaning that wave don't interfere like that. Radio waves pass right through each other and continue along their merry way, they don't bounce off each other. Its really cool to see signals interfere in a nonlinear system like this. How cool are all all those little mini vorteces that form! I wonder how much alignment they needed to do to get that perfectly shaped collision?

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:14:39 -0800

Fantastic, thanks for posting this.

By: mistersquid

mistersquid — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:14:57 -0800

awesome

By: Confess, Fletch

Confess, Fletch — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:15:12 -0800

Awesome!!!

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:19:07 -0800

They have babies!

By: device55

device55 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:24:30 -0800

It's made of science!

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:26:05 -0800

3! 2! 1! CONTACT it's the MOMENT! It's the REASON! Why EVERYTHING HAPPENS!

By: StrangeTikiGod

StrangeTikiGod — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:50:02 -0800

my high school physics teacher would be delighted that I saw little vector overlays in my mind and went "oh, yeah, that totally makes sense in three dimensions..." but the little mini-rings that form tangential and perpendicular to the original rings are just awesome. I shall henceforth refer to them as "Spanish Inquisition Rings" as I did not expect them.

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:52:16 -0800

Ahem. Still freakin' awesome.

By: nonliteral

nonliteral — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:52:35 -0800

A+++ Would Watch Again!

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:52:43 -0800

Since this video seems to be early 1990s vintage, someone really needs to reproduce the effect using HD cameras from multiple angles and better lighting.

By: Mizu

Mizu — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:05:31 -0800

This made me spontaneously exclaim "cool!" on a day I've barely spoken out loud at all.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:07:10 -0800

Since this video seems to be early 1990s vintage, someone really needs to reproduce the effect using HD cameras from multiple angles and better lighting. This looks like a job for... THOSE GUYS ON TIME WARP!

By: strixus

strixus — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:15:31 -0800

Dude! It forms little mini vortexes all around the impact points... Yes, I'll admit, this made me squee loud enough to scare my cat.

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:23:55 -0800

Is this feeling that I have... Is it what your people call "squee"?

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:27:18 -0800

I see your vortex, and raise you a pyrophone... (previously)

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:31:00 -0800

Some of the other videos are somewhat less science related. But still pretty funny.

Whenever I am tempted to tune out the local math-nerd when he/she goes on and on about quantum mangling and emergent systems and blah blah blah, I see something like this, and start to pay =sharp= attention.

Well, that's nice and all but thanks to the unsolvability of the Navier Stokes math doesn't really have much to say about these patterns, they are pretty much unpredictable, unless you actually simulate the entire thing on a computer (As far as I know)

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:40:35 -0800

technically, it's a ruben's tube, and the vortex collision is still really awesome. But that was the first thing I thought of, fun air compression / sound wave tricks but with fire!

By: flaterik

flaterik — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:59:36 -0800

" fun air compression / sound wave tricks but with fire!" I have seen some pretty cool fire tricks at that thing that steals all of your rights and is evil, but not vortex interference effects. That would be awesome.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:08:23 -0800

Saw this on Reddit this morning and I agree it's awesome. What's most awesome about are the precise experimental conditions that were created, allowing it to happen. Any variation between the strength of the two original smoke rings, or any atmospheric interference, and it would all have crashed. It's pretty cool how regular the universe is if you can manage to isolate any one phenomenon from the tumbling complexity that comprises streetcorner cacophony.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:09:26 -0800

> but not vortex interference effects. they haven't figured out how to set fire to them, yet..

By: flaterik

flaterik — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:26:34 -0800

Well, I've seen a handful of flame vortexes out there (including one very large one that I somehow can't find pictures of), but not interference effects. I suspect having any wind at all would make it pretty difficult to do.

By: dopeypanda

dopeypanda — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:30:14 -0800

I wonder how much computing power you would need to simulate that. It would make a wicked cool toy to play with. Any bored physics grads out there?

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:31:22 -0800

I wonder how much computing power you would need to simulate that. Probably substantially less than what it takes to run the latest Bioshock game on the highest resolution.

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:38:07 -0800

This is what happens when smoke rings start texting.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:15:18 -0800

the tumbling complexity that comprises streetcorner cacophony Nice turn of phrase.

By: Twang

Twang — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:10:22 -0800

O wow, man! I miss my Lava Lamp.

By: tastydonuts

tastydonuts — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:14:24 -0800

Oh cool, someone else reads Reddit. Awesome.

By: bwg

bwg — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:30:04 -0800

What we need is an experiment where two guys blow blunt rings at each other.

By: molecicco

molecicco — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:39:20 -0800

Man, fluid dynamics is fascinating. It's amazing that something so common as the movement of fluids around us is still so poorly understood. I wonder how much computing power you would need to simulate that. It would make a wicked cool toy to play with. Any bored physics grads out there? It takes a lot of computing power. So far as I know, this is generally the domain of mechanical engineers, and producing three-dimensional dynamic simulations of fluid movement (gaseous or liquid) is hard-core stuff. Just simulating simple, two-dimensional flame-fronts over a few seconds can take over 24 hours of computations (although granted, that also includes temperature calculations and involves a chemical reaction). Beautiful video, and as mentioned upthread, I would love to see it with a better quality camera!

By: Nelson

Nelson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:26:43 -0800

Note caption: "This is what physicists do when they're high."

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:17:45 -0800

I remember the Pixies' drummer David Lovering effected a vortex cannon with a bass drum (he used to open with a little magic show for Frank Black). Also the VHS vermislitude is teh hawt.

By: This Guy

This Guy — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:55:28 -0800

I wonder how much computing power you would need to simulate that. It would make a wicked cool toy to play with. This really depends on how fast you want it done. You can always just do a step-wise finite element analysis through each point in space at each step in time, and determine the forces acting on each particle at each moment. Could be done by hand, theoretically. But those are some gnarly equations (Navier-Stokes represent, as delmoi said) that are actually unsolvable by conventional methods at the moment, so you'd have to throw in some approximations. But all in all, you could come up with some fun approximate simulations if you don't want it too accurate/reproducible or too quickly. Well over 24 hours, even for a small part of the ring, as molecicco predicted. That was a seriously cool video. Also cool is the corn starch cthulu. (Wait for it...)

By: furtive

furtive — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:00:49 -0800

I think of two galaxies colliding when I look at that video, someone find me a real life example out there!

By: molecicco

molecicco — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:07:52 -0800

Also cool is the corn starch cthulu . (Wait for it...) Oh man, the standing waves were pretty cool, but the corn starch fingers were incredible!

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:45:17 -0800

Exquisite.

By: Diablevert

Diablevert — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:00:47 -0800

But those are some gnarly equations (Navier-Stokes represent, as delmoi said) that are actually unsolvable by conventional methods at the moment, so you'd have to throw in some approximations. Just out of curiosity, could you explain a little more what you mean by this? How can they have equations which are unsolvable --- do they contain a variable whose value is somehow unknowable? Or is it some other reason? And how do you come up with them, if they can't be solved?

By: a robot made out of meat

a robot made out of meat — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:11:06 -0800

Just out of curiosity, could you explain a little more what you mean by this? They're differential equations (meaning that you describe the change with time) for the movement of fluids. The equations relate pressure and viscosity to change in position and momentum of all the "pieces" of the fluid. They're hard, so for most initial setups of the fluid we don't know how to write down exactly what the fluid will look like in the future.

By: CaseyB

CaseyB — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:25:23 -0800

George Lucas' inspiration for the Special Edition explosions?

By: ChrisR

ChrisR — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:28:52 -0800

Best of the ~~Web~~Laws of Physics

By: molecicco

molecicco — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:44:19 -0800

The reason they can't always be solved is because there are a lot of non-linearities involved (for example, viscosity of a fluid can change with shear stress... toothpaste and ketchup are like this). Solving a partial differential equation that include non-linearities is not always possible.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:13:52 -0800

I like the little video jump at the exact moment the smoke collides, like it's the result of a shockwave miles away.

By: quin

quin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:49:30 -0800

In related news, my efforts to duplicate this with ketchup and toothpaste rings has been largely unsuccessful. It also created a taste which can only be described as "an vortex explosion of gross". Fantastic video though.

By: spilon

spilon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:12:38 -0800

Also two Atlantians with their mighty Sea-Lungs. We have sea-lungs in Atlanta? Must be from all the air pollution.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:29:19 -0800

So, I watched the corn starch cthulu video that This Guy linked up above, and I only realized halfway through whose video that is - how many people in the internet are likely to be named stavrosTWC?

By: keep_evolving

keep_evolving — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:51:29 -0800

That effect is awesome but the video is utter crap! WTB higher quality footage, thx.

By: Nioate

Nioate — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:42:23 -0800

Just out of curiosity, could you explain a little more what you mean by this? How can they have equations which are unsolvable --- do they contain a variable whose value is somehow unknowable? Or is it some other reason? And how do you come up with them, if they can't be solved? Differential equations describe a constraint that you want your solution to follow and to "solve" them you must somehow divine a solution that follows that constraint. (There might even be more than one solution.) It's easy to come up with any constraint you want but usually very hard to come up with solutions that fit those constraints. Courses on differential equations teach you tricks to divine solutions for certain easy constraints that we know a lot about, but some constraints are hard enough that sometimes it is not even clear whether there is a solution or not.

By: Araucaria

Araucaria — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:26:03 -0800

Okay, I realize I'm late to the game here, but ... I did my bachelor's thesis on vortex rings (pre-LaTeX: I had to write my equations in the manuscript by hand). Did my dissertation on methods for hyperbolic PDEs. Work with Navier-Stokes codes for a living. So, to follow up on earlier N-S comments: you can indeed find approximate solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. The reason they are hard to solve is that non-linearity means that each solution is its own beast. You can't add two solution functions and get another function which satisfies the equation. However, it is possible to find a particular solution and then use perturbation analysis to derive a set of closely related solutions. Numerically, there is still lots of room for improvement in CFD codes. Solution-Adaptive Mesh Refinement is a big one, with some people looking at adjoint-based techniques. There is also a lot of work going on with turbulence models, because no matter how fine your grid, you still can't resolve every scale of turbulence. Modeling this particular system wouldn't be too bad. It's all laminar and you could do it with CART3D (a NASA adaptive mesh refinement code).

By: Barry B. Palindromer

Barry B. Palindromer — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:25:55 -0800

Shoot, I just came in here to say what Araucaria just said. Dang it!

By: xorry

xorry — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:46:21 -0800

> So, I watched the corn starch cthulu video that This Guy linked up above, and I only realized halfway through whose video that is - how many people in the internet are likely to be named stavrosTWC? Stavros has a voice deeper than the subdivisions at R'lyeh, and couldn't go the full length of the video without getting coffee. However, unless I'm a squirrel this is his YouTube Channel.

By: cdmwebs

cdmwebs — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:48:23 -0800

Giant vortex cannon.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:35:28 -0800

I'm getting malware warnings for links to http://technology.todaysbigthing.com. Just so you know.