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2011-09-18 Foil - Breakthrough

2011-09-13 Lichtenberg figures

2011-09-11 Sahara fractals

2011-09-04 Turing-McCabe patterns

2011-08-30 Kim Pimmel

2011-08-19 Rayleigh-Taylor instability

2011-08-18 More fluid dynamics

2011-08-14 Fractal Mondrian animation

2011-08-12 Shinishi Maruyama

2011-08-05 The Mazeman

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A blog about algorithmic art and fractal aesthetic. Click here to subscribe to the RSS feed.

August 19th 2011

Rayleigh-Taylor instability

Shortly after the last post, I discovered some amazing videos by Mark Stock displaying simulations of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in fluids. The Rayleigh-Taylor instability arises when two fluids sit on top of each other, with the one on the top being denser than the one on the bottom. This is of course an unstable situation, and small inhomogeneities in the interface develop into turbulent structures when the fluids start mixing. The wikipedia article above shows a beautiful picture of the Crab Nebula, where this phenomenon creates awesome fingers of gas.

The Crab Nebula

Here are two of Mark's videos. Watch them full screen! You can check his youtube channel here.

Mark Stock, 2D High-resolution Rayleigh-Taylor Instability, algorithmic animation.

Mark Stock, Gyre 27-29, algorithmic animation.