Physics
| External videos | |
|---|---|
| Dolphin play bubble rings SeaWorld | |
| Extraordinary toroidal vortices YouTube | |
| Bubble ring Time warp - In slow motion YouTube | |
Air bubbles in water having diameters greater than about two centimetres quickly become rings because water pressure increases with depth. Higher pressure water below the bubble overcomes the surface tension of the sphere, punching a hole in the centre to create a ring shape.
As the bubble rises it increases in diameter and the ring becomes thinner, despite the total volume inside the bubble ring increasing as the external water pressure and the surface tension pressure decrease. Bubble rings fragment into rings of spherical bubbles when the ring becomes thinner than a few millimetres. This happens more quickly in turbulent water, but in calm water divers can achieve an external diameter of a metre or more before the bubble fragments.
Read more about this topic: Bubble Ring
Famous quotes containing the word physics:
“We must be physicists in order ... to be creative since so far codes of values and ideals have been constructed in ignorance of physics or even in contradiction to physics.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people’s attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“The labor we delight in physics pain.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)