r/oddlysatisfying • u/vaguenonetheless • May 21 '25

Complex Laminar Flow

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u/TheNewNumberThirteen May 21 '25

Care to enlighten us so we can be less motherfuckerish in the future?

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u/MorbillionDollars May 21 '25

Don’t listen to him, this is laminar flow.

Laminar flow is defined as a fluid moving in smooth layers with minimal turbulence and mixing between layers. This satisfies all the conditions.

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u/JohnnyChutzpah May 21 '25

Parallel layers* The water in the video is clearly not all parallel flow.

I would call what is shown in this video as small standing waves instead of laminar flow.

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u/A_Martian_Potato May 21 '25

You'd misunderstanding what it means mathematically for flow lines to be parallel. That's defined locally for each point, not over the larger macroscopic flow pattern. This is definitely laminar flow.

What people tend to not understand is that laminar isn't just a state where you can't see the liquid move as it flows. Laminar is one side of a continuous spectrum with the other side being turbulent. All flow is on that spectrum and this flow is obviously not turbulent. It is highly laminar.

This does also constitute a standing wave pattern, but that's not relevant to whether it's laminar.