Many of us stumble upon the Leidenfrost Effect accidentally when cooking. The 2010 winner of the SciCast Best Physics film is one of the best short films on the subject I’ve seen, but the video above, also made by students, introduced me to a surprising new effect related to it. I’m pretty sure Jonathan, who’s away in Abu Dhabi at the moment, is going to love it.
You beat me to posting this, Alom – thanks! I absolutely love it, particularly since I’ve been aware of both the Leidenfrost effect and ‘bristle transport’ (used for moving nuclear fuel pellets around, amongst other things) for years, but this never occurred to me.
Terrific piece of lateral thinking. And you’re absolutely right about that old SciCast film, it’s one of the best.
That is excellent, thanks for that.
We had a Nuffield A level Physics student many years ago who investigated the ‘standing waves’ that appear in droplets on a hotplate – he had to settle for still photos and drawings. I wonder what he would have done with a high speed camera?
I have a reasonably high speed camera at the ready. If only I knew of a hotplate with a dimple in the centre near Newcastle…
Anyone?