Collaborations

While turbulence can be observed in many natural phenomena,

it is difficult to define in precise terms; after all, unpredictability

is one of its primary characteristics. It’s easier to talk about the

symptoms of turbulence: the agitation or chaotic motion around

vortices, rapid spatial/temporal changes in pressure and speed,

a mixing effect, a vorticity distributed unevenly across three

dimensions, and a disarray impossible to reproduce in detail ...

https://muac.unam.mx/exposicion/melanie-smith

This final point—the disarray that can’t be reproduced in

detail—is exactly what interests Melanie Smith. In the exhibition

hall, the first layer of the palimpsest is a wall projecting the video

of a scientific simulation. The attempt to understand turbulence

is the attempt to understand the chaotic behavior of forces.

Vortices are right at the heart of this phenomenon, on the scale

of both meteorological events and microscopic occurrences.

Dr. Roberto A. Zamora Zamora studies turbulence via the quantum

phenomenon of superfluidity (a fluid that moves without vis-

cosity), which appears in ultracold atomic gases. To do so, he

solves the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and analyzes the evolution ...

https://muac.unam.mx/exposicion/melanie-smith