There’s some interesting research coming out of the world of physics this week. G. Haller of The Institute for Mechanical Systems, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland and F.J. Beron-Vera of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida have publiched a piece of research titled “Coherent Lagrangian Vortices: The Black Holes of Turbulence” in ARXIV.org, an online physics forum on which scientists post early versions of their latest ideas. Haller and Beron-Vera’s research is garnering a lot of media attention because they have identified oceanic phenomena in the southern Atlantic that function in ways similar to black holes.
Yes, we’re talking about black holes, those deep space terror formations that rip holes in the space-time continuum and from which nothing can escape, not even light. According to their research (which you can read here), Haller and Beron-Vera have identified similar physical characteristics between black holes and what have historically been known as maelstrom.
Haller and Beron-Vera, in fact rely upon the words of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelström” in order to describe the phenomenon: “The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel. . .”
According to their research, the scientists show that the turbulent vortices they have found using satellite imagery appear as rotating bodies of liquid that move across the ocean as a coherent island of water that functions not unlike Poe’s description and resonates with our understanding of black holes.
Poe’s broad belt of gleaming spray, it turns out is mathematically equivalent to a photon sphere, that is, a a surface on which light encircles a black hole without entering it. This analogy, they show, yields computational advantages in being able to determine eddy boundaries in the South Atlantic Ocean. Using satellite altimetry-based velocities from the South Atlantic, the researchers have been able to locate super-coherent vortices.
Science is so cool.
Atlantic Ocean, Maelstrom, Research
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