Ocean Sciences Meeting, San Diego, Monday morning 8 a.m.

Here we go, a full week of exciting science presentations lies ahead of us. The Ocean Sciences Meeting is a large scientific conference devoted entirely on new discoveries in ocean physics, biology, chemistry, … from hot topics in the tropics to cool stuff in the rapidly changing polar regions. About 5,000 scientists from around the […]

When you dare say what everybody else is thinking…

Using “One should really play more!” as title of a presentation in a serious scientific colloquium might seem like a bold move, but the gamble payed off: a large, interested audience including everyone from students to professors enthusiastically dropped ice cubes and food dye in our LEGO-driven rotating tanks and passionately discussed their observations. On […]

Welcome to the family!

In addition to our four DIYnamics-inspired rotating tanks, we now have a highly professional rotating table with SO MANY options! And also so much unboxing and constructing and trouble-shooting to do before it works. But we finished the first successful test: wanna see some rotating coffee in which milk is added? Then check this out!

Observing how rotating systems behave differently from non-rotating ones

One might ask oneself why we are insisting on rotating tank experiments. In order to establish that rotation isn’t just there to make equations a lot more complicated, but that it actually changes how things behave, we ran two different experiments. Turbulence in rotating and non-rotating system First the probably easiest experiment anyone could imagine: […]

The DIYnamics rotating table and our experiences with it

The inspiration for Torge’s and my PerLe teaching innovation project was a 2018 article by the DIYnamics team in which “affordable rotating fluid demonstrations for geoscience education” are presented. We were first intrigued, then excited, and since I have always wanted to have a rotating table to play with at home, there was nothing to […]

Giving Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics a new spin

oder: Man muss einfach vielmehr spielen! After teaching atmosphere and ocean dynamics (AOD) for a couple of years I wanted to introduce something new to this course, which is part of the BSc program Physik des Erdsystems (Physics of the Earth system) at Kiel University. The course is kind of a tutorial accompanying the lecture. […]