Thursday, March 15, 2007

waves leave sand patterns behind

Lorenzo and I worked on this little science project, just by accident (inspired by the Kitchen Science Series from the Naked Scientists' podcast: www.thenakedscientists.com/). I was spackling/decorating the walls of my bedroom and left this bucket full of water and some "insoluble" grains of "sand" (wood/wall filler, as a powder).
By shaking the bucket, we created waves and watched the patters of the "sand" as it set, a few minutes later. This one shown in the photo was perhaps the nicest pattern, showing a beautiful simmetry. We obtained it when the waves were created by shaking the basin back and forth along just one direction. You don't get it as shown if you turn the waves around.