The Feynman Water Sprinkler Experiment

[happinesson]

I love physics! Nice experiment!

[workingTchr]

How cool! Feynman was such an original thinker. Who would have thought of that?  I'll bet he was the first.

[MegaMomchil]

@workingTchr You seem not to be understanding anything about neither physics, nor about the essence of the experiment. Go and do something different from phsyics, this is not your talent, believe me!

[BlatendCrude]

Ok, so now what.....?

[stovetube]

This early version is done in air - look for the video responses to see the same thing done under water.

[wolfekeeper]

I think that experiment is good, but in the case where it's sucking, it's not supposed to move (much).

I suspect it's the difference between a thin sprinkler and a thick one. In a thin one the pressure and flow field around the tip is spherical, and then there's little movement because the fluid moves in equally in all directions (pretty much).

In a thick sprinkler, like this, the pressure can't be spherical because the sprinkler body gets in the way, and that causes it to move.

[cartossin]

Eddie: a vacuum or under water? also, liquid water when exposed to a vacuum just boils into a gas. I've seen this experiment done under water and typically it either doesn't move or moves very slowly. There's been a lot of work done on this and in most cases any movement is explained by complex interactions and the shape of the jets.

[DonQuichotteLiberia]

There is a nice Wikipedia article about this, called Feynman_sprinkler.

Note that the Feynman sprinkler is done with water, a pretty much incompressible fluid, where there are no density gradients, meaning the divergence of the water flow vector field is zero, very much unlike air.

[EvanGarrettRogers]

The point of the experiment is not to show which way it would go. The point of the experiment is that Feynman was such a jokester that he was able to convince everyone that the experiment NEEDED to be conducted!

The following quote taken from Feynman's book (10 thumbs up)...

His professor, John Wheeler: "Yesterday, Feynman convinced me that it went around backwards. Today he's convinced me equally well that it goes around the OTHER way. I don't know WHAT he'll convince me of tomorrow!"

[idricool]

@EvanGarrettRogers Feymann is a million times smarter than you are. At least, he got a Nobel prize, worked in Manhattan Project and did a great deal of work in quantum physics.

[evangrogers]

@idricool ... um... thanks for insulting me? You didn't read the book did you. If you did, you'd realize that i'm not insulting him.

Thanks for being a dick, though.

[evangrogers]

@idricool Wow, way to prove you didn't read the book.

If you actually read "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman", you'd realize that one of the major points he made was that reading a book about an experiment is one thing. But ACTUALLY doing an experiment is the only real way to understand something.

Thanks for being a dick, though. You clearly never read the book... or perhaps, you didn't understand it?