They were wrong, this is even cooler than I remembered it being!
Materials
A straw.
A glass.
1Tsp of pearl swirl.
Pink food coloring.
Procedure
Once the pearl swirl is mixed, put the straw in the glass and blow.
Result
Bubbles are a lot more fascinating than I ever really figured they would be. Most of the time I think of bubbles I think of these nearly spherical, iridescent bubbles floating through the air. In this instance we have bubbles that are anything but that. I don’t think they are spherical at any point in time in this video. The bubbles collide with and conform to the inside of the glass. The most interesting part about this to me is the splashing of the water inside the bubble. Popping bubbles is expected, but seeing eruptions of water inside a bubble was not. I will probably post a macro (close up) shot of one of this event in the relatively near future, it is awfully neat.
Today we have some more of that wonderful pearl swirl, only in a slightly different medium. I had a pan full of vinegar that I had used earlier in a baking soda shot, and then later had dropped lots of random colors into. That was used as the background for this shot.
Materials
Pan of white vinegar.
Several drops of green, red, brown and blue food coloring placed randomly around the pan.
A few drops of Pearl Swirl.
Procedure
Drop the fluid from a height of roughly 8″
Result
The Pearl Swirl and the colors really give these splashes an extra kick. The colors provide a nice back drop, in addition to emphasizing the waves. It is interesting to note how the Pearl Swirl appears to clump more in the vinegar than it does in water. That gives it a relatively grainy look as opposed to the normally smooth texture. As always watching the crown form and splash crater fill back in are always interesting. This time the addition of the silver of the uncolored Pearl Swirl adds an additional layer of visual complexity.
Lighting
The lighting rig used here is the same setup for the previous milk splash shots.
This is the full un-cropped version of the pearl swirl shot. Sadly, I don’t have much to say about this one that hasn’t been said the previous two days. For those of you who aren’t really interested in these shots I am going to be posting another shot shortly to make up for the three days of this one shot.
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Ok, so, admittedly yesterday’s clip wasn’t the most interesting clip I’ve posted. Today’s is better though! This one is actually pretty neat to watch, the movement is very clear and it really isn’t something we normally get to see. I love the initial billowing of the fluid. The pearl swirl really makes the rolling billow visible. The overall contraction and larger scale swirl, although subtle and slow, is somewhat interesting. For five bucks a bottle of Pearl Swirl is a great toy for science class or just to play with at home. It is especially neat if you can get it setup in some sort of perpetual motion machine similar to the wave generators you see at some of the novelty shops. I plan on making one of those one of these days to film, I just have to find a good looking oil to use. A simpler and more practical toy is a mason jar filled with water and about a table spoon of Pearl Swirl as well as a few drops of food coloring. If you can get it all the air bubbles out it makes a rather fun toy if you are as easily amused as I am. Anyway, enjoy the shot! Tomorrow I’ll post the full, scaled down clip.
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This is the first in a series of three I am going to do over the next three days. These all come from one shot, but there were so many interesting things going on I really wanted to show a few cropped version before the rescaled clip.This shot captures Pearl Swirl mixed with blue food coloring being poured into water. Pearl Swirl is a product you can pick up at a few various science supply stores, it usually comes pre-mixed however you can purchase just the powdered form. Pearl Swirl is a rheoscopic fluid. What this means is that it allows for easy visualization of the currents within a fluid. Consequently its very pretty and so is used in thousands of products including shampoo’s and body washes. I ran across it on Steve Spangler’s science website. You can pick up a bottle for about $5.00.
In this clip I wanted to show off the stream coming from the cup I was using to pour, the splashes as well as a bit of what is happening just under the surface of the water. The very first drop to hit is probably the most interesting to look at, the particular way it separates into bands after it hits the water is neat. The stream itself is an interesting study as well. As you can notice the fluid is considerably thicker and heavier than water and so the splash behavior is different from some of the other splashes we have watched. A note for those considering shooting pictures or video of pearl swirl: The currents are made visible by way of very tiny crystals that reflect the light. In order to have it show up make sure the light is coming from the direction you are filming. In this instance I placed one light directly behind the camera, and two others just off to either side. This made certain the currents in the fluid were visible. Tomorrow we will look at what is happening a bit further down in the water.
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