When you’re small, liquids behave like slippery solids
We think we're pretty familiar with how ordinary liquids behave, but it turns out that some of the basic things we know are no longer true when we look at these liquids on short enough length scales and fast enough time scales. The liquids start to behave more like solids, pushing back when you push on them, and slipping across solid surfaces instead of being dragged along. Click to ride the tiny-but-mighty new wave of nanofluidics!
Electric Crystals and their Broken Symmetries
Students learn how some crystals produce electricity when squeezed! This lesson is part 4 of a 4-part student-driven, lecture-free series, in which students will do card sorts, build hands-on models, solve engineering design puzzles, and more!
Ketchup and oobleck and slime, oh my!
Why do so many fluids behave counterintuitively? Many substances in our lives – like oobleck, slime, or Silly Putty – don’t quite behave the way we expect a fluid to, despite some fluid-like properties. These substances fall into a special category: non-Newtonian fluids. Scientifically, this term is a bit of a catch-all for any substances that have a complicated relationship between their apparent viscosity and the force applied to them.