by
Dahl
Clark, 2001
Water
Splashes Viewed from Above and Below the Water
In
this experiment, drops were released from a height of 38 cm above
the surface of a deep pool of water, which appears as a gray
horizontal line. From these photos, we see that one splash
of a water drop takes 320 ms, or roughly 1/3 second, to run from
start to finish.
View
animation
Details
of the experiment
Water
Splashes Viewed from
Beneath the Surface
In the
following two experiments, drops were released from a
height of 46.5 cm above the surface of the water in a 5-gallon
aquarium. The camera was tilted up at an angle, and focused
at a point just beneath the water's surface.
1.
Splash
animation, viewed from below
The
animation linked above was made from pictures taken 3 ms apart from one another, for a
detailed underwater view of what happens during a water splash.
2.
Selected photos
The
tank was surrounded by aluminum foil to allow light from the
flash to reflect throughout the interior of the tank. This had the effect of evenly
lighting the underside of each splash.
