Fluid dynamics

Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.

By exploiting randomness, three mathematicians have proved an elegant law that underlies the chaotic motion of turbulent systems.

A startling experimental discovery about how fluids behave started a wave of important mathematical proofs.

Researchers have spent centuries looking for a scenario in which the Euler fluid equations fail. Now a mathematician has finally found one.

Physicists have found examples of “universality” in a system of confined bubbles. The work could help researchers understand the strange behavior of singularities.

Turbulence is everywhere, yet it is one of the most difficult concepts for physicists to understand.

Simple physical principles can be used to describe how rivers grow everywhere from Florida to Mars.

By squeezing fluids into flat sheets, researchers can get a handle on the strange ways that turbulence feeds energy into a system instead of eating it away.

The Navier-Stokes equations describe simple, everyday phenomena, like water flowing from a garden hose, yet they provide a million-dollar mathematical challenge.