2,000fps Slo-Mo Video of Water Drops

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So it turns out that when a drop of water falls into a pool of water, some very weird things happen. Rather than merging directly with the pool of water beneath, the drop very briefly becomes a sphere resting atop the pool, with an air layer between. When the sphere touches the water below (because of gravity, it forces the air layer away), most of the drop joins the water below and a second sphere is created, which again "floats" briefly on the pool. The cycle continues until eventually the water drop is actually fully subsumed by the water puddle below. Who knew? Check it out in this video clip, apparently from the Discovery show Time Warp, which is all about ultra-slow-mo (this video is shot at 2,000 frames per second, which is about 67 times more than normal 30fps video).

(Via Kottke.org.)

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November 16, 2009 - 11:58am
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