Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 28 November 1997:
Vol. 278. no. 5343, pp. 1609 - 1612
DOI: 10.1126/science.278.5343.1609
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Imaging of Intermittency in Ripple-Wave Turbulence

William B. Wright, R. Budakian, D. J. Pine, * S. J. Putterman dagger

The dynamics of a fluid surface filled with high-amplitude ripples were studied with a technique (diffusing light photography) that resolves the height at all locations instantaneously. Even when nonlinearities are strong enough to generate a (Kolmogorov) cascade from long wavelength (where energy is input) to shorter wavelength, the resulting turbulent state contains large coherent spatial structures. The appearance of these structures in a thermal equilibrium state (with the same average energy) would be highly improbable.

Physics Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
*   Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)