Comments on: Creepy bubbles and magnets

By: MaDeR

MaDeR — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:22:58 +0000

@13 soo this video is showing larval stage of shoggoth?

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:15:59 +0000

It reminds me of the possessed hand in Evil Dead.

By: Musical Lottie

Musical Lottie — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:52:53 +0000

Ooh, that was very cool!

@Mingan in schools in the UK, at GCSE level (up to age 16) chemists were* taught that every electron shell has eight electrons, and we even drew diagrams of this – it was only at A level (aged 17-18) that we were taught the correct number of electrons in each shell! (Funny how chemistry made more sense at A level … )

*I don’t know if this is still the case; my GCSEs were only 6 years ago but it may have changed. Equally it may not have changed.

By: VinceRN

VinceRN — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:44:17 +0000

Hey! I thought this was supposed to be a blog about politics, not art!

People do the most amazing art with magnetic fluids.

By: Col

Col — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:58:15 +0000

“…a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming…”

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:45:37 +0000

Whooooaaaaaa… Okay, I agree with Phil that it got dadgum weird there at the end. That was freaky.

By: sciencemc

sciencemc — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:33:03 +0000

When the red started it kind of reminded me of the opening credits to Dexter.

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:28:37 +0000

@Minigan #7, consider what I said above to Podrick #3. Surfactant in an aqueous solution.
The proper solvent for the proper solution in the conditions required, regardless of STP.

By: Wzrd1

Wzrd1 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:26:13 +0000

@podrick #3, I was actually considering surfactant in an aqueous soultion.
Or a new installment of Resident Evil…

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:25:42 +0000

Trippy! Neat if a little creepy clip.

By: Mingan

Mingan — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:31:12 +0000

Thing about oil fields is that even in school textbooks, they’re always depicted as cavernous reservoirs. And to top it all off, they tell you they inject high pressure salt water in the rock to scrape off more oil. So much confusion.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:01:31 +0000

I had the same thought about oil and ground-water movement… This is definately a good way to illustrate this.

By: P-A Söderström

P-A Söderström — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:50:29 +0000

I was happy to see that it was not such a creepy ending as I expected after reading the post. But really, really cool. I wonder what kind of ferrofluid liquid that is being used? I got a sudden urge to try this myself.

By: rob

rob — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:37:50 +0000

i try to anthropomorphise certain politicians, but am constantly disappointed by their behavior.

@podrock: i always assumed that the oil was in giant 3d resevoirs (i blame cartoons) until watching a PBS special not too long ago. i learned that the oil is distributed just as you mention. in retrospect, that makes much more sense.

By: podrock

podrock — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:31:31 +0000

Interesting! This a good analog for how oil, or groundwater, moves through an unfractured sandstone with good porosity and permiability. Picture the bubbles as the quartz grains (clasts), the dark fluid as the oil moving through the intersticial spaces, and the magnet as the well bore whose lower pressure is attracting the fluid.

When you hear of an oil reservoir, don’t picture a pool o’ petroleum underground, visualize this – in three dimensions. At least up until the bubbles collapse.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:56:10 +0000

Woah. o.O It’s like the alien black oil from the X-Files.

By: BJN

BJN — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:21:26 +0000

I don’t know about “creepy” aside from the black and red colors for the magnetic fluid. Very cool images, however. It’s always fascinating to see fractal patterns in simple inorganic systems that look organic.