Nonlinear dynamics in fluids is a research area focused on the analysis and prediction of fluid flows governed by nonlinear partial differential equations, such as the Navier–Stokes and Euler equations. It investigates phenomena including hydrodynamic instabilities, transition to turbulence, coherent structures, pattern formation, and spatiotemporal chaos across a wide range of Reynolds numbers. Methods commonly involve asymptotic analysis, bifurcation theory, dynamical systems approaches, numerical simulation, and experimental visualization. The field aims to characterize attractors, energy cascades, and multiscale interactions in laminar, transitional, and turbulent regimes, informing modeling, control, and reduced-order descriptions of complex fluid behavior in both natural and engineered systems.
Boats passing over smooth water form a pair of diffusion wakes behind them veering off at a certain angle. Turbulence occurs along the line directly behind the boat, but the two diffusion waves are at a theoretical angle ...
A research team from Hiroshima University, the University of Colorado, and other collaborators have demonstrated that space-time crystals—exotic structures that, under external drive, loop endlessly through both space and ...
Soft Matter
Jun 24, 2026
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When a physics student asked baristas at the Warsaw Coffee Conference what their biggest question for scientists was, the baristas said they wanted to know how to stop channeling during brewing.
General Physics
Jun 23, 2026
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Superfluids are intriguing states of matter in which particles behave like a giant collective wave, allowing them to flow without any friction. When this fluid flows past a fixed obstacle at a velocity below a specific threshold, ...
Whether the dust borne on the violent winds of a tornado or the sugar grains in a swirled cup of coffee, the behavior of particles carried along in turbulence is subject to some similarities—all of them difficult to predict ...
General Physics
May 26, 2026
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The concept of spacetime, first described in Einstein's theory of general relativity, has since been widely studied by many physicists worldwide. Spacetime is described mathematically as a four-dimensional (4D) continuum ...
An AI model informed by calculations from a quantum computer can better predict the behavior of a complex physical system over the long term than current best models that use only conventional computers, according to a new ...
Soft Matter
Apr 17, 2026
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Inspired by the collective dynamics of bacteria like E. coli and Bacillus subtilis, researchers at the University of Twente asked a simple but fundamental question: what happens when artificial swimmers are made rod-shaped ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 10, 2026
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David J. Silvester, a mathematics professor at the University of Manchester, has developed a novel machine-learning method to detect sudden changes in fluid behavior, improving speed and the cost of identifying these instabilities ...
Soft Matter
Apr 9, 2026
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Some computers are easy to spot. Artificial, human-built computers like those found in smartphones and laptops are abstract dynamic systems with observable computational elements like input, output, energy cost, and logical ...
General Physics
Feb 26, 2026
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