The sudden decompression at 30, 000 feet is something you gotta see to believe
Scientists often have to make sacrifices for their work. Physicist Dominic Vella chopped his bathroom rug into strips, and L. Mahadevan’s coauthor ran off with his bookshelf. With these sacrifices, these two teams were able to glean enough information to revolutionize the world’s understanding about the physics of lumpy carpets.
Their results, set to be published in two separate papers in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters, describe everything about wrinkles in rugs– known also as rucks — including how they form, how they move, and what happens when they interact. (…)
First, Vella and his team tested rubber mats of different thicknesses on a variety of flat surfaces. After observing how a wrinkle in the rubber mat developed on wood, sandpaper and metal, the team compared it to the behavior of Vella’s own bathroom rug on the same surfaces. To see how these wrinkles move, the team used a high-speed camera to film the mats while a team member waved one end up and down.
photo { Rug by Gandia Blasco }
