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Thursday 14 March 2013

Magic Zig-zagging water

A colleague sent me this link to an experiment on Alex Hardy's Blog where a 24Hz Sine Wave is put through a flow of running water adn it appears to run in a zig zig motion. I don't know if this beats non-newtonian fluid on a speaker* but it's pretty darn close.

 

The camera frame rate is adjusted to match the vibration of the wave (so, 24 FPS {frames per second})to get this effect. This is an optical illusion resulting from viewing the stream of water at the same FPS as the HZ of the sound. In person, it wouldn't look like this. It's a bit like the way the rims on a car appear to spin in reverse at certain speeds. At 23Hz the stream of water would look like it is moving backwards and 25Hz like it is moving forward in slow motion.

 *I just searched back for a blog post to link to on non-newtonian fluid on speakers and was amazed to find that I haven't posted about it yet. Error. Post coming soon!

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