Bouncing of Newtonian Liquid Jets

After coming across the Kaye effect in the spring of 2007 (click here for video), I learned about how to bounce a jet of a Newtonian liquid off the surface of a rotating bath of the same liquid (click here for Matt Thrasher's site at the University of Texas for more information). I realized that there is a simpler experimental setup than that used by the University of Texas researchers (although more difficult to analyze, as it turns out). Rather than move the bath, you can get a horizontal component of velocity for the jet with respect to the bath by tilting the jet. James Bomber and I have begun studying this approach as part of his Blugold Fellow project. As a teaser, here is a picture of James producing a bouncing jet (using paraffin oil in this case) by hand:

Click the image to view a video (wmv) of the jet bounce, and a special treat: a double bounce.

A canola oil jet.

We are currently constructing a better experimental set-up and expect to get some actual data soon (and better videos).

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Thomas E. Lockhart (lockthom@uwec.edu)
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Updated: 9/1/06