SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Glimpsing Worlds Too Fast for the Eye

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

When a water droplet gently drips into a puddle, it is subsumed in a spectacular -- and almost invisible -- series of steps. The droplet dances along the water surface, breaking into smaller and smaller parts until it is completely absorbed.

To the naked eye, it resembles nothing so much as a slight tremor along the water's edge. But seen through the prism of a high-speed camera, it looks like the super-slow-motion death of a basketball's bouncing.

"This," crowed Matt Kearney, a high-speed imaging expert, as he cued up a video clip of a water droplet, "is going to blow your mind." When Mr. Kearney pressed play, a portable TV screen showed a drop of water from a hypodermic needle break into six smaller droplets before coalescing completely into the pool.