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"Swimming in Flatsea," by Greg Huber. Nature, 14 December 2000, pages
777-778.
"Silk and soap settle a century-old flap," by P. Weiss. Science News,
16 December 2000.
These two articles describe research reported in the 14 December 2000 issue of Nature. The research refutes the conventional explanation, put forth by Lord Rayleigh more than a century ago, of why flags flap in the wind. The researchers devised a clever experiment with a one-dimensional "flag" (in the form of a silk thread), which they placed in a soap film "breeze". Contrary to what Rayleigh's explanation would predict, the researchers found that the thread sometimes flapped and sometimes lay straight in the film. "While this experiment might seem odd at first, it actually bears on a host of difficult and unresolved theoretical issues in fluid dynamics," Huber writes. "And, like other advances in fluid dynamics, progress in this area is likely to find application in a wide variety of different disciplines."
--- Allyn Jackson
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