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Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
41–50 of 76 posts
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
The near-perfection of the circular shape is what really makes it stand out. It's strange to see such regularity in natural phenomenons.
Agreed (though circle is pretty common, but,) has anyone ever seen any trace of a mandelbrot-shaped feature anywhere in nature? (I mean the whole set, not just seahorses/etc) I'm on the hunt!
If you aren't looking for Mandelbrot specifically, Romanesco broccoli is the most fractal-y plant I know.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#43An interesting phenomenon. Are we interested in it because it seems to be a rare and observable event that seems “magical”? Or is there a deeper search for meaning here?
It's very neat.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#44I wonder if, in the absence of gravity (and thus no issue of buoyancy), a spherical ice ball would form in a stream of slow moving cold water...
In zero gravity, liquid water will form a sphere all by itself thanks to surface tension.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#45I wonder if, in the absence of gravity (and thus no issue of buoyancy), a spherical ice ball would form in a stream of slow moving cold water...
In absence of gravity there would be no atmosphere, no pressure, no liquid water and especially no flowing liquid water.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#46Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can have a directed spray (maybe shot out of a giant fire hose at high pressure and flow), but without gravity, the liquid will disperse over a short distance. I don't see how that's avoidable because of entropy/diffusion. Gravity plus a container (river bed) create a perfect condition for the sorts of liquid flows we're accustomed to: a nearly identical acceleration on all particles, with a bounded displacement.
if you have a laminar flow, wouldn't some equivalent of surface tension keep it together?
Surface tension is incredibly weak, very little nonuniform acceleration will break it.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Less lumpy than a billiard ball. The mountains and trenches only seem significant because the whole thing is so big. Totally not a perfect sphere though, yeah.
> Less lumpy than a billiard ball. Well, no: https://ourplnt.com/earth-smooth-billiard-ball/ The myth is springs from the fact that if you had a smooth earth with a radius of center to Mariana Trench, and another smooth earth with a radius of center to Mt. Everest, you could shrink both of them by the same factor and fall within allowed billiard ball specifications. That says nothing about smoothness, only about the…
If you shrunk the earth down to the size of a billiard ball and the imperfections where only as rough as the bumps in medium sandpaper then that's still pretty darn round even if it wouldn't be acceptable under official billiard ball specifications. I never could get behind the idea that it would be smooth as a billiard ball but to know you could feel the ridges is pretty neat and yet it's very very round.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#49I wonder if, in the absence of gravity (and thus no issue of buoyancy), a spherical ice ball would form in a stream of slow moving cold water...
In absence of gravity there would be no atmosphere, no pressure, no liquid water and especially no flowing liquid water.
You could imagine a glass donut filled with water, as well as a small rotor to move the water in a circle.
You obviously have to balance the water pressure and temperature to reach slow ice formation, and maybe you need a more interesting container shape than a donut to get interesting results.
Re: Maine's giant spinning ice disc looks like it's reforming
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume that can be artificial. Just use a pump.
You can have a directed spray (maybe shot out of a giant fire hose at high pressure and flow), but without gravity, the liquid will disperse over a short distance. I don't see how that's avoidable because of entropy/diffusion. Gravity plus a container (river bed) create a perfect condition for the sorts of liquid flows we're accustomed to: a nearly identical acceleration on all particles, with a bounded displacement.
Just recreate the river bed from a solid material (to prevent dirt from floating away) and add a lid