Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
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Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#2Brb buying propylene glycol!
Turns out there are vape-shops that sell the glycol, the water, and the paraphernalia to mix them! There is some food coloring left from the last party. Will have to source some glass plates still :-)
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#3Wonder if you could make a cellular automata with this.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#4I hate these pointless analogies in popular science reporting. "droplets of fluid will move like performers in a dance choreographed" -- it may sound good to the writer but it just comes across as pretentious and does not help explain anything. In general those facile analogies do in fact make things muddier. The only exceptions is when they are stated along with how they are different from the phenomenon being described. Here, no point, except to pad the word count I guess.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#5I hate these pointless analogies in popular science reporting. "droplets of fluid will move like performers in a dance choreographed" -- it may sound good to the writer but it just comes across as pretentious and does not help explain anything. In general those facile analogies do in fact make things muddier. The only exceptions is when they are stated along with how they are different from the phenomenon being descr…
I agree, it would be nice if they just explained where the energy comes from and how it flows to drive this, imho the most interesting question. But I guess "a mystery" draws a bigger public. For me it just means frustration after watching the movie.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#6Brb buying propylene glycol! Turns out there are vape-shops that sell the glycol, the water, and the paraphernalia to mix them! There is some food coloring left from the last party. Will have to source some glass plates still :-)
The pg is already in the food coloring. What you need are differential evaporation rates, so I would experiment with mixing water and/or alcohol with one color and then leave the other alone.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#7I hate these pointless analogies in popular science reporting. "droplets of fluid will move like performers in a dance choreographed" -- it may sound good to the writer but it just comes across as pretentious and does not help explain anything. In general those facile analogies do in fact make things muddier. The only exceptions is when they are stated along with how they are different from the phenomenon being descr…
I agree, it would be nice if they just explained where the energy comes from and how it flows to drive this, imho the most interesting question. But I guess "a mystery" draws a bigger public. For me it just means frustration after watching the movie.
I guess it's a difference in the target audience. They're writing for the people who will look at it and exclaim, "oh, how beautiful deep and profound this Science is".
Myself, I look at science articles with questions that boil down to "how can we make use of it to build something cool?". I look for explanations, even coarse, of what's going on - what are the critical conditions that need to be preserved for the phenomenon to appear? What are the hard constraints? So yeah, I prefer less artistic but confusing analogies.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#8Wonder if you could make a cellular automata with this.
It is a cellular automaton.
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#9I hate these pointless analogies in popular science reporting. "droplets of fluid will move like performers in a dance choreographed" -- it may sound good to the writer but it just comes across as pretentious and does not help explain anything. In general those facile analogies do in fact make things muddier. The only exceptions is when they are stated along with how they are different from the phenomenon being descr…
I was excited for this article and then I read your comment and it... just makes sense what you wrote and now I'm not that excited. I'm thankful but at the same time I'm not
Re: Researchers solve mystery of odd behavior by droplets of food coloring (2015)
#10Wonder if you could make a cellular automata with this.
The blobs look a lot like gliders in smoothlife:
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/Msy3RD
Or the haploscutinae in Lenia:
https://chakazul.github.io/Lenia/JavaScript/Lenia.html
Or real keratocyte fragments, but i can't find a video of those.