The Anatomy of a SplashKarina LawrenceAward: Top 100
School: millennium high school The image was taken on a speedboat, rushing through the Gulf of California, acting on the water and creating an explosion of spray, filaments, and droplets in the air. The concept of the physics in the image is in the principle of turbulent flow. The water is not smoothly flowing but in a random fashion, scattered in every direction by the force of the boat. As opposed to smooth waves, turbulence causes the water to collide, spin, and swirl. When the boat's motor pushes water backward and outward, the water pushes back with an equal and opposite force. However, due to the boat's greater mass and considerable speed, it displaces the water forcefully. Instead of dissipating into mist, the water groups together, due to cohesion and surface tension. Water molecules attract each other, and this molecular "stickiness" causes droplets to form tight, curved shapes. Surface tension is a holding force; it holds these shapes together even as they travel through the air at high speeds. Lastly, when sunlight hits tiny, fast-moving droplets at the right angle, light reflects off the curved surface and bends through the droplets, scattering in many directions. Since the droplets are small and suspended in the middle of the air, they scatter light in numerous directions, and act like small mirrors, concentrating the light and shining briefly. The bright spots demonstrate the complicated principle of Mie scattering, in which light is bent inside and around droplets, amplifying wavelengths until the glint is as radiant as seen. 
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