thin film physics (very cool vid)

this video is very cool science from the iss


the video shows the bizar physics of a thin film of pure water in zero G
a must watch science video,

i am watching it over and over to try to understand how the physics behind this works,
as the behavior of the pure water seems to defy known surface tension laws

i would love for someone to explain to me how a drp of water can travel THROUGH water and emerge out the other side?

xploder

Very interesting... of course - the direction of convection is due to the nature of higher-energy particles to assume higher energy states (represented by distance from a tensor force, in this example). That same surface tension/viscous nature inducts available mass to fill the space (which comes from the cooler mass of water).

Further, the 'thinner' regions of the bubble offer a greater surface-area/mass ratio, which allow heat to be lost to entropy much quicker than low area/mass regions (and those particles later get drawn back to the tensor mass).

reply to post by Aim64C


thank you
that explains the heat experiment,
but how does water droplets travel "through the surface tension" of the the film and out the other side?
conservation of momentium?
different surface tesion properties of water in zero g?

xploder

reply to post by XPLodER


That is a little more complex, and I'm not quite sure I have the full answer.

However, I would imagine it is somewhat analogous to quantum tunneling. The water droplet represents a particle while the film represents a classical barrier. A particle with enough energy and the correct properties can tunnel through a classically impenetrable barrier (in this case, by becoming a compression wave within the film). Other particles will be absorbed by the barrier or rebound off of it, depending upon their energy states, angles of incidence, etc.

If I had the know-how and the computing power, I'd try to run some fluid compression simulations to show how a wave propagates in 3d through a film and how it would interact to create a "rebound" following absorption, as well as some other things... but I'm actually belaying other responsibilities to make this post, let alone create an entire suite of software with rendered simulations.