Picture of a gas flowing around a ball
No. 167, 1975
(Aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and geometry)
India ink and pencil on paper, 31.5 x 44 cm.
In the middle of a seemingly turbulent sea, a giant ball hovers in space, while all around it waves curl, crest, and roll. Below, dwarfed by its shadows, people stand and watch. This image is, in a sense, a meditation on the idea of flow, of the way liquids and gases take on shapes as they flow around a rigid sphere. When the fluid moves slowly, it remains smooth. When it flows fast, turbulence rumbles its surface. To study such laminar or turbulent flows, mathematical models come quickly into play, especially ones involving Lie groups and Hamiltonian geometry. Interestingly, these equations make up a special case of more general multidimensional equations that describe the motion of a rigid body's multidimensional analogues. Meanwhile, the sphere continues to hover, the waters continue to flow.
