This video shows an example of the Taylor-Couette experiment. Researchers at the University of New Mexico use two concentric cylinders with corn syrup between them, add drops of colored dye, then rotate the inner cylinder to “mix” the colors together. When they reverse the rotation, the colors “unmix” and return to their origional location and form. This is an interesting example of laminar flow, since the syrup is so viscous the flow stays orderly instead of turbulent, so nothing actually diffuses and every motion is fully reversible. I like this video because it makes an abstract fluid dynamics concept feel like a magic trick. The colors are seen blending into what looks like an abstract art piece, and then are able to be unwound back to their origional distinct dots forms like nothing happened. This experiment is a simple setup, but it makes the physics click in a way that is sometimes difficult to glean from equations.

Authors:
University of New Mexico, Department of Physics and Astronomy