"Pulling up" the Physics of Clay on the Pottery WheelRobert TrifasAward: Top 100
School: alabama school of mathematics and science In my art classes, I see many of my peers pursue art as an escape from their STEM classes, especially physics. However, I've grown to love ceramic art for the beauty of the science hidden in plain sight. For example, consider the pottery wheel. Potters have made pieces on it since the 4th millennium BC, but many fail to appreciate the physics at work. The wheel spins extremely fast, so a high shutter speed camera was used to capture this photo, which shows a piece on the wheel being compressed inward and getting taller. When the potter applies their hands to the clay, a centripetal force is applied to the clay. At the moisture level used for the wheel, clay behaves like a very viscous fluid. This fluid is incompressible, so its volume and density remain constant. As the force is applied on the outside towards the center and on the inside outward, the wall thickness decreases. Since the thickness decreases, the height must increase for the volume to be unchanged. The metal wheel under the clay stops it from moving downwards; therefore, it must move upwards. On a particulate level, when the clay particles are pushed inward, intermolecular forces repel them from moving towards the center, so they slide upward. This photo shows only the very beginning of a piece, but it is still full of the beauty of physics. 
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