Splasharific

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This is a fascinating shot and there is lot going on. Play it at least three times and watch what happens above the water surface, at the water surface and below the water surface!

The explanation over at Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics

In air, some of the energy of this pressure wave would be dissipated by compressing the air. Since water is incompressible, however, the blast instead moves water aside as the bubble expands. Eventually, the bubble expands to the point where its pressure is less than that of the water around it, which causes the bubble to collapse. But the collapse increases the gas pressure once more, kicking off a series of expansions and collapses. Each bubble contains less energy than the previous, thanks to the loss of pushing the water aside.

That's a Cold Shot, Babe

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How to freeze water in about half a second

This is an example of supercooling – the process by which a very pure liquid is chilled to a temperature just below its usual freezing point without actually making the jump to its solid state. Bottled water is perfect for this, especially the kind that’s been purified via reverse osmosis, a process that strips water of all its particulates. This particulates can act as “seed crystals,” or “nuclei,” to which a liquid phase on the cusp of becoming solid can attach, and crystalize around. In this video, a seed crystal is introduced in the form of a cube of already-frozen water. As soon as it’s introduced, the liquid phase rapidly crystallizes and attaches to the solid one, kicking off a chain reaction of ice-formation.

I think you’ll have to agree that this is pretty frikkin’ awesome.

Hocus Pocus

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Something Up His Sleeve, Part 1

While we know [magicians are] not breaking the rules of nature, we also know that we’re powerless to stop them from appearing to break the rules of nature. If we don’t know the secret behind the illusion, they can easily fool us. Sometimes even if we do know the secret behind the illusion—sometimes even if we’re magicians—they can still fool us.

Where the Cicadas Are, 2013 Redux

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I went back to cicada-land with my slow-motion camera. I’ve still got a lot of video to edit, but here’s a decent shot at 210 fps.

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I had a pretty good shot at 420 fps, but unfortunately it started out in a shaded area before going into the sunlight, and the camera does not dynamically adjust the contrast once you start shooting. So a lot of it is overexposed. Grrr.

Also got a few stills.

Global Warming of Burger Buns

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An awesome lesson of grilling that had not occurred to me before.

The secret to toasty buns is in the physics

Anytime you cook light-colored food with high heat, inattention is a recipe for disaster. But the physics here is pretty simple, and once you understand it you can use several methods to improve your odds of making that perfectly toasted bun, golden half-melted marshmallow or juicy grilled fillet.

At high temperatures — about 400 degrees and up — a substantial part of the heat that reaches the food arrives in the form of infrared light waves rather than via hot air or steam.

A lesson that one also sees in discussions about global warming: white-ish things, like the above-mentioned buns marshmallows or fish, reflect much more radiation than darker things. So as your food item begins to brown (or your Arctic ice melts), it absorbs the heat much faster, and correspondingly cooks faster. A potentially disastrous feedback effect.

via ZapperZ