For example, we have a bottle filled with water to the point when there’s no space left in that bottle, is the water still moving as we shake the bottle?

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For example, we have a bottle filled with water to the point when there’s no space left in that bottle, is the water still moving as we shake the bottle?

In: Physics

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Trying for a very ELI5 one:

Water is really good at slipping past each other. Imagine getting a necklace of beads and putting it around a large tin on the floor so that the necklace is stretched out around it, though all the beads are still touching each other. Then pull it around the tin.

It will move, because even though every space each bead in the necklace is moving into would be full of another bead, that bead is *also* moving out the way. This is sort of obvious really, it happens any time we have a flat spinning object, but I wanted to focus on the path specifically.

Now imagine that the water can also be full of a million possible paths for closed loops of water to go through, all slipping past each other and with everything on the loop moving out of each other’s way.

So because the water along any loop can all slip relatively freely, you can still get motion even when the space is completely full up, it just has to be rotational motion around those loops.

That’s before you get into the fact that water can actually change density, so that, for example, it can spread the compression waves that correspond to sound. Holding a bottle still and putting a speaker next to it is also moving the water, if not very much.

Most of the motion you’ll get is from loops of water though.

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