Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Floating water bridge between two beakers


The interaction of electrical fields and liquids can lead to phenomena that defies intuition. Some famous examples can be found in Electrohydrodynamics as Taylor cones, whipping jets or non-coalescing drops. A less famous example is the Floating Water Bridge: a slender thread of water held between two glass beakers in which a high voltage difference is applied. Surprisingly, the water bridge defies gravity even when the beakers are separated at distances up to 2 cm. "Building water bridges in air: Electrohydrodynamics of the Floating Water Bridge", ArXiv, 19 Oct 2010.

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