Flattened Fluids Help Scientists Understand Oceans and Atmospheres
Turbulence, the splintering of smooth streams of fluid into chaotic vortices, doesn\u2019t just make for bumpy plane rides. It also throws a wrench into the very mathematics used to describe atmospheres, oceans and plumbing. Turbulence is the reason why the Navier-Stokes equations\u2014the laws that govern fluid flow\u2014are so famously hard that whoever proves whether or not they always work will win a million dollars from the Clay Mathematics Institute.