Drop of Water

[DiscGo]

This was MUCH cooler than I expected.

[Deathcricket]

My feeling is you expected this to be "kinda cool". Your expectations were exceeded and you upgraded this to "pretty cool". I watched this expecting it to be "pretty cool" and actually found it to even exceed my expectations and be "really cool". I think we need one more person to upgrade this to "hella cool".

[bowjunkie]

now that's just flippin cool

[Cirrus2000]

Super cool!

[DiscGo]

I remember in college learning that they had discovered they could split lasers into shapes before they actually did it. That the scientists who first split lasers knew the result for fact before they proved it.

I wonder if this is the sort of thing where the math or science community knew this was happening long before they could see it, or if this is the sort of thing that they turn to the math \ science community to explain what they discovered with high speed cameras. I suspect science knowing about this before it was documented is more likely.

[Cirrus2000]

I remember in college learning that they had discovered they could split lasers into shapes before they actually did it. That the scientists who first split lasers knew the result for fact before they proved it.

I wonder if this is the sort of thing where the math or science community knew this was happening long before they could see it, or if this is the sort of thing that they turn to the math \ science community to explain what they discovered with high speed cameras. I suspect science knowing about this before it was documented is more likely.

Hmm, it's really hard to say, though.

It's possible that no one had really thought about what the implications would be on a drop of water - such a mundane thing. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened the other way around - that it was discovered then explained.

[Deathcricket]

I suspect science knowing about this before it was documented is more likely.

That is a very interesting thought actually. My initial thought is to agree with you completely. But then after I watched this another 100 times in fascination, I notice the very last drop is small enough to be completely absorbed into the water body. I suspect that perhaps even though science knew about there being surface tension on water, they might have assumed a drop was small enough to be completely absorbed with one shot. I tried googling to find an answer but no luck. Trip out!

I would also be curious to see if the velocity the water drop hits the surface at changes the number of bounces. Like a raindrop which has achieved maximum speed, for instance.

[Deathcricket]

I also tried finding the entire episode. I can tell from youtube they do other tests with multiple drops and other really cool stuff. I think it's on Discovery and called time warp. I can't find the specific episode so I tried watching the episodes here.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/time-war...de-tab-02.html

But they are chuck full of commercials so I'm just torrenting the entire series. Looks fascinating and worth the download. But if anyone can tell specifically what episode this is and what season I would be curious to know please. I'm sure I will still enjoy the other stuff the put on here though.

[CarpeyBiggs]

these ones are rad too.

[DiscGo]

I am curios if a 10,000 frames per second camera would show the a prolonged version of the same principle which is lost on the 2,000 frames per second.