[FRIAM] Swirlies redux

Sat Aug 5 11:27:46 EDT 2023

Who made up the exact timings?

-- rec --

On Sat, Aug 5, 2023, 9:10 AM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
wrote:

> There were 10 or so intermediate prompts to drive chatGPT to that lab
> report.
>
> On Sat, Aug 5, 2023, 8:52 AM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> wrote:
>
>> chatGPT, you are a graduate student at c the Santa Fe Institute's complex
>> systems summer school, write a lab report on your experiences with the
>> tornado in a tube.
>>
>>
>> **Student Lab Report**
>>
>> **Title:** Insights into Fluid Dynamics and Symmetry Breaking via
>> 'Tornado in a Tube'
>>
>> **Objective:** This lab aimed to explore the critical principles of fluid
>> dynamics, including the principle of least action, surface tension, broken
>> symmetry, and their impacts on fluid behavior, using the 'tornado in a
>> tube' experiment. We introduced variations in the system's orientation,
>> structural changes, and the application of external forces to further
>> understand these principles.
>>
>> **Method:** Our setup included two 2-liter clear plastic bottles, water,
>> a tube connector, and glitter for fluid visualization. We followed the
>> procedure outlined in the lab exercise, with additional testing for
>> different system orientations, external force applications, and structural
>> modifications.
>>
>> **Findings:**
>>
>> 1. **Role of Surface Tension in Vertical Setup:** With the bottles
>> vertically aligned, surface tension at the bottleneck significantly slowed
>> the drainage process. This resulted in a droplet-like flow and a drainage
>> time of 8 minutes and 12 seconds.
>>
>> 2. **Influence of External Forces:** By applying an external force to the
>> system—squeezing the top bottle in pulses—we managed to overcome the
>> surface tension resistance. This modified approach expedited the drainage
>> process to a time of 1 minute and 47 seconds.
>>
>> 3. **Impact of System Orientation:** We then experimented with tilting
>> the bottles to different angles. A tilt of approximately 42 degrees
>> provided the quickest drainage time—2 minutes and 32 seconds. The tilt
>> balanced the inflow of air and the outflow of water, thereby managing the
>> effects of surface tension effectively.
>>
>> 4. **Vortex Formation, Symmetry Breaking and the Principle of Least
>> Action:** In the next step, we swirled the top bottle to form a vortex,
>> leading to a broken symmetry in angular momentum. This energy-efficient
>> pathway embodied the principle of least action, allowing the water to
>> overcome the surface tension barrier and to drain in an impressive 18
>> seconds. This broken symmetry enabled the efficient dissipation of the
>> gradient between the bottles.
>>
>> 5. **Effects of Structural Changes:** Our final test involved an
>> open-ended tube setup. Here, we observed noticeable changes in fluid
>> behavior. The vortex's efficiency in gradient dissipation decreased due to
>> interference from the ambient pressure, indicating the crucial role
>> structural features play in fluid dynamics.
>>
>> **Conclusion:** The 'tornado in a tube' experiment, complemented by our
>> additional tests, provided a comprehensive understanding of fluid dynamics
>> principles. The observed differences in drainage times highlighted the
>> significant impact of system orientation, the principle of least action,
>> surface tension, and broken symmetry on fluid dynamics. These findings
>> offer deeper insights into fluid behavior and are applicable to a range of
>> real-world phenomena, from weather systems to biological processes.
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023, 8:05 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, folks. I apologize to those of you who are fed up with my kitchen
>>> physics, but there has been a bit of a development in that saga that I want
>>> to share with those few of you who aren’t.   Years ago, I came home for
>>> the summer with my ears ringing with the notion that structures are formed
>>> to dissipate gradients.  Please set aside any teleological implications
>>> of this statement and ask the question in its most neutral form:  Do
>>> the structures that sometimes form as a gradient is dissipated dissipate it
>>> more quickly once the structure has been formed.   Or, as I came to
>>> interpret it, does facilitating the formation of such a structure speed the
>>> dissipation of the gradient.
>>>
>>> I was the family dishwasher at the time.  I deplore washing dishes, but
>>> I love messing around with warm soapy water, and so I started to experiment
>>> with starting the vortex that forms *after* you pull the plug out of
>>> the sink *before* I pulled the plug.  Quickly, it became apparent that
>>> facilitating the vortex formation in that way GREATLY SLOWED the emptying
>>> of the sink.  Triumphally, I wrote Steve on Friam only to be greeted by
>>> a torrent of scatological raillery, so intense and so persistent from the
>>> fluid dynamicists on the list that I never heard from Steve. The burden of
>>> this raillery I have distilled into Roberts Rule of Order:  DEFROCKED
>>> ENGLISH MAJORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO TALK about fluid dynamics.
>>>
>>> More than a decade later, I am back in Massachusetts, washing dishes at
>>> the same sink, and the question occurred to me again. I raised it finally
>>> with Steve, and he generously sent me the little two-bottle toy, where you
>>> flip it over and the water drains from one bottle to the other.  As it
>>> drains, it forms a vortex in the draining bottle, and the occurrence of the
>>> vortex greatly *increases* the speed of the draining.  Finally, if one
>>> facilitates the formation of the vortex by rotating the bottle a bit, the
>>> bottle drains even more quickly.  Thus, the result is entirely
>>> different, especially if one substitutes two large pop bottles for the ones
>>> included in the kit.
>>>
>>> At the risk of bringing another round of raillery down on my head, I
>>> opine that the difference has something to do with the fact that two bottle
>>> situation is more of a closed system than the sink situation.  The test
>>> would be to saw the bottom off both bottles and demonstrate that
>>> vortex-formation now slows drainage.
>>>
>>> It will be a while, though, before I can get two extra bottles to
>>> destroy.
>>>
>>> Does anybody care to make a prediction and offer an explanation why the
>>> results should be different in the two cases?
>>>
>>> Nick
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