A Study of SplashesWorthington, A. M. (Arthur Mason)
Science
A Study of Splashes
Worthington, A. M. (Arthur Mason)
Splashes
It might well be expected that the effect of increasing the height of
fall of our drop to 100 cm. would be simply to emphasize the phenomena
already observed, and to obtain a higher crater and a taller rebounding
column. Such an expectation would be mistaken. A new phenomenon makes
its appearance. The crater does indeed rise to a greater height, but its
mouth closes so as to form a bubble on the surface of the liquid. If the
height be not too great the closing is either incomplete or at any rate
only temporary, and the bubble reopens at the top to make way for the
column which rises as before from the base, but is now much thicker and
hardly so high as before.
In the Series II, which is now given, the drop was of milk, 7·36 mm. in
diameter, and fell 100 cm. into water.
Photographs 1 and 2--to which is added 2-a, though taken under slightly
different conditions--show that the drop on entering punches a
sheer-walled hole, for the fine line of light seen above the level of
the top of the drop in Figs. 2 and 2-a marks the circular cliff-like
edge of the as yet undisturbed liquid. Up the vertical sides of this
circular pit the liquid of the drop is streaming. This cliff is highest
and perhaps clearest in Fig. 2-a.
The closing of the mouth of the crater, which is just beginning in Fig.
5, is to be explained as follows. If the crater were a simple
thin-walled cylinder of liquid, it would contract under the influence of
the surface-tension just as does a soap-bubble, but not so fast, since
the walls have only a horizontal curvature. If the wall is thinner above
than below, then the upper part will contract faster than the lower,
through there being less liquid to accelerate. Now the supply of liquid
is from below, and will thicken the lower part of the walls first, and
thus account for the faster closing of the mouth. On the other hand, the
uppermost edge of the crater is the place where the checking influence
of the surface-tension on the upward flow is first felt, with the result
that the edge of the rim is thickened by the influx from below, so that
a more or less regular rope-like annulus is formed round the edge. Now
calculation shows that such an annulus, so long as its thickness is not
more than 1·61 times the thickness of the wall below, will contract
quicker than the wall, and this will tend to close the crater, somewhat
as a bag would be closed by the contraction of an elastic cord round the
mouth. This rope-like thickening of the edge is to be seen in Figs. 5
and 7, and especially in Figs. 3 and 4 of Series III on page 63.
[Illustration: SERIES II
Milk into water (100 cm. fall).
1 0·002 sec.
2-a
2 0·002 sec.
3 0·002 sec.
4 0·009 sec.
5 0·018 sec.
6 0·018 sec.
7 0·039 sec.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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