Skip to content

Search for:

Featured Blogs
Topics
Our Substack
Follow Us!
- Bluesky
- Threads
- FaceBook
- Google News
- Twitter/X
Contribute/Contact

New York University

Amount of edible pasture grasses and vegetation grown in each gridcell per year for grazing livestock (pasture aboveground biomass). Darker colors refer to more annual pasture growth per unit area. Green shows pasture growth in potential forest areas, where pasture has replaced areas that were once forested. Pink shows pasture growth in native grassland areas.

Small Meat Production Cuts in Wealthy Nations Could Have Major Climate Impact

Categories Earth, Energy & Environment, Life & Non-humans

Cochlear implants are more beneficial to deaf children with learning disabilities than hearing aids.

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Enhances Perceptual Learning in Mice Study

Categories Brain & Behavior, Health

Over a year after a whole-eye and partial-face transplant, Aaron James has made a remarkable recovery, back to daily life in Arkansas.

World’s First Whole-Eye and Partial-Face Transplant Shows Promise One Year Later

Categories Health

Man talks with physician

Good News for Kidney Donors: Risk of Death Reaches Record Low

Categories Health

synthetic blood platelets

New Blood Platelet Score Reveals Hidden Heart Attack and Stroke Risks

Categories Health

Brain illustration

Scientists Unravel the Neural Mechanisms of Planning

Categories Brain & Behavior

Because the infections can be confused for other skin conditions, they may go without proper treatment for months. CREDIT: CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/GETTY

New Sexually Transmitted Fungal Skin Infections Resist Standard Treatments, Pose Public Health Threat

Categories Health

The new technique allows scientists to see each particle that makes up colloidal crystals and to create dynamic three-dimensional models.

Scientists develop “x-ray vision” technique to see inside crystals

Categories Physics & Mathematics, Technology

A watercolor painting depicting the impact of discrimination on biological aging. The image shows a stylized human figure with a DNA double helix superimposed on it. The DNA strand is shown with various markers, representing the epigenetic changes associated with accelerated aging. In the background, silhouettes of people are shown in different shades, representing the various forms of discrimination experienced by individuals. The image conveys the connection between discrimination, chronic stress, and the biological processes of aging.

Study Reveals Discrimination May Accelerate Biological Aging, Fueling Health Disparities

Categories Brain & Behavior, Health, Social Sciences

Aerodynamic Interactions Reveal Secret to Birds' Synchronized Flight

Aerodynamic Interactions Reveal Secret to Birds’ Synchronized Flight

Categories Life & Non-humans, Physics & Mathematics

Worms collected in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, as seen under a microscope.

Chornobyl’s Resilient Worms Defy Radiation’s Genetic Impact

Categories Life & Non-humans

man looking at a counter top of vegtables

Plant-based diet tied to improved sexual health in men treated for prostate cancer

Categories Health

For decades scientists have been trying to solve Feynman’s Sprinkler Problem: How does a sprinkler running in reverse—in which the water flows into the device rather than out of it—work? Through a series of experiments, a team of mathematicians has figured out how flowing fluids exert forces and move structures, thereby revealing the answer to this long-standing mystery. “Our study solves the problem by combining precision lab experiments with mathematical modeling that explains how a reverse sprinkler operates,” explains Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the paper, appears in the journal Physical Review Letters. “We found that the reverse sprinkler spins in the ‘reverse’ or opposite direction when taking in water as it does when ejecting it, and the cause is subtle and surprising.” “The regular or ‘forward’ sprinkler is similar to a rocket, since it propels itself by shooting out jets,” adds Ristroph. “But the reverse sprinkler is mysterious since the water being sucked in doesn’t look at all like jets. We discovered that the secret is hidden inside the sprinkler, where there are indeed jets that explain the observed motions.” The research answers one of the oldest and most difficult problems in the physics of fluids. And while Ristroph recognizes there is modest utility in understanding the workings of a reverse sprinkler—“There is no need to ‘unwater’ lawns,” he says—the findings teach us about the underlying physics and whether we can improve the methods needed to engineer devices that use flowing fluids to control motions and forces. “We now have a much better understanding about situations in which fluid flow through structures can induce motion,” notes Brennan Sprinkle, an assistant professor at Colorado School of Mines and one of the paper’s co-authors. “We think these methods we used in our experiments will be useful for many practical applications involving devices that respond to flowing air or water.” The Feynman sprinkler problem is typically framed as a thought experiment about a type of lawn sprinkler that spins when fluid, such as water, is expelled out of its S-shaped tubes or “arms.” The question asks what happens if fluid is sucked in through the arms: Does the device rotate, in what direction, and why? The problem is associated with pioneers in physics, from Ernst Mach, who posed the problem in the 1880s, to the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, who worked on and popularized it from the 1960s through 1980s. It has since spawned numerous studies that debate the outcome and the underlying physics—and to this day it is presented as an open problem in physics and in fluid mechanics textbooks. In setting out to solve the reverse sprinkler problem, Ristroph, Sprinkle, and their co-authors, Kaizhe Wang, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the study, and Mingxuan Zuo, an NYU graduate student, custom manufactured sprinkler devices and immersed them in water in an apparatus that pushes in or pulls out water at controllable rates. To let the device spin freely in response to the flow, the researchers built a new type of ultra-low-friction rotary bearing. They also designed the sprinkler in a way that enabled them to observe and measure how the water flows outside, inside, and through it. “This has never been done before and was key to solving the problem,” Ristroph explains. To better observe the reverse sprinkler process, the researchers added dyes and microparticles in the water, illuminated with lasers, and captured the flows using high-speed cameras. The results showed that a reverse sprinkler rotates much more slowly than does a conventional one—about 50 times slower—but the mechanisms are fundamentally similar. A conventional forward sprinkler acts like a rotating version of a rocket powered by water jetting out of the arms. A reverse sprinkler acts as an “inside-out rocket,” with its jets shooting inside the chamber where the arms meet. The researchers found that the two internal jets collide but they do not meet exactly head on, and their math model showed how this subtle effect produces forces that rotate the sprinkler in reverse. The team sees the breakthrough as potentially beneficial to harnessing climate-friendly energy sources. “There are ample and sustainable sources of energy flowing around us—wind in our atmosphere as well as waves and currents in our oceans and rivers,” says Ristroph. “Figuring out how to harvest this energy is a major challenge and will require us to better understand the physics of fluids.” The work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMS-1646339).

How does Richard Feynman’s “reverse sprinkler” work?

Categories Physics & Mathematics

Older posts

Newer posts

← Previous Page1 Page2 Page3 … Page5 Next →

Comments

Henry on Robust Immune Systems and Larger Brains Drive Longer Lifespans in Mammals
Henry on Childhood Diet Quality Influences Age of First Period
Leo on Ultra-Processed Foods May Speed Up Early Signs of Parkinson’s
BPD98 on Physicists Capture First-Ever Images of Atoms Interacting in Free Space
G ODonnell on Surprising Myths Shaping Our Mental Health Beliefs

© 2025 ScienceBlog.com | Follow our RSS / XML feed