Beaver: [inspects the tree] Let me see here… 6 foot 6 and 7/16 inches.
A typical lawn sprinkler features various nozzles arranged at angles on a rotating wheel; when water is pumped in, they release jets that cause the wheel to rotate. But what would happen if the water were sucked into the sprinkler instead? In which direction would the wheel turn then, or would it even turn at all? That’s the essence of the “reverse sprinkler” problem that physicists like Richard Feynman, among others, have grappled with since the 1940s. Now, applied mathematicians at New York University think they’ve cracked the conundrum. […]
“We found that the reverse sprinkler spins in the ‘reverse’ or opposite direction when taking in water as it does when ejecting it, and the cause is subtle and surprising.” […] found that the reverse sprinkler rotates a good 50 times slower than a regular sprinkler, but it operates along similar mechanisms, which is surprising. […]
The reverse sprinkler problem is associated with Feynman because he popularized the concept, but it actually dates back to a chapter in Ernst Mach’s 1883 textbook The Science of Mechanics (Die Mechanik in Ihrer Entwicklung Historisch-Kritisch Dargerstellt). Mach’s thought experiment languished in relative obscurity until a group of Princeton University physicists began debating the issue in the 1940s.
acrylic on canvas { David Hockney, A Lawn Being Sprinkled, 1967 }
