Early morning Kiel fjord #wavewatching with the help of condensation trails

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When it’s all foggy and there are hardly any waves, sometimes help comes from the most unexpected places. Today: condensation trails that are reflected on the water!

Isn’t it interesting to see how depending on the angle of the trails waves show up a lot or hardly at all? The condensation trail on the right really looks like a snake that fell into an ants’ nest, whereas the one on the left is wriggling calmly and composedly.

(I think the assumption that the waves are more or less the same for all trails is fair to make. Don’t you agree?)

Interesting pilot ship #wavewatching at Kiel canal

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Some throwback Friday evening wave watching (at the locks at Kiel Holtenau with my friend Sara for a nice and relaxing end of the week) to start the new week. The best!

First: The pilot boat going towards the locks. Unusually visible wake — they are going fast today! Plus an interesting sheltering of waves: The wind is coming towards us so outside of those floating pontoons are a lot larger than the ones on this side that haven’t had enough fetch to build up.

Below we see the same wake: But do you see how it’s just ending on the left? That’s because the pilot boat went in behind the jetty on the far side of the fjord, and it’s only these bits of the wake that were able to propagate outside before the boat went in and the waves don’t make it out of the small channel created by the jetty.

And below the pilot boat going out again in a curve: Love how you see the turbulent wake as well as the deformed V-shaped feathery wake. When you look from the pilot boat down on the picture, do you see the individual “feathers” of the V? Love this perspective on wakes!

And this is what you will see of me when you meet me for a coffee anywhere near water. Sorry Sara, but thanks for the picture! :-)

Thinking about giveaways for my scicomm consultancy for April’s #scicommchall

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Be warned — this is a long blog post without a real conclusion at the end. You are very welcome to read it, but I’m writing it mostly for myself and for a friend who has offered to help me work on this (The amazing Ronja of Treibholz. Thank you!). Once I have a real conclusion and have settled on a giveaway that I actually want to produce, I’ll let you know :-)

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A tiny waterfall, super- and subcritical flows, submerged hydraulic jump, standing waves. What more could anyone want?

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Last stop on my work trip that — apart from doing important work, obviously — brought me to Berlin for some wave watching and to Brodowin to look at beaver dams: Eberswalde.

Waiting for an appointment, I sat in the sun next to this adorable little waterfall and looked at so many nice examples of phenomena.

What I like best: The standing waves that you see in the reflection of the tree to the right. They do move a tiny little bit back and forth, but overall stay pretty much in place. In that exact spot, the current velocity is clearly as large as the waves’ phase speed, so they can’t get away in either direction.

A close second place is how smooth the turbulent current gets right before it plunges down the waterfall (see how the turbulence upstream looks like structures are more or less as long as they are wide, and then they become really long ellipses as they are accelerated towards the waterfall and the front is going faster than the back?), and the submerged hydraulic jump (and check out the video in this post for another really cool one!). And I love how the water is boiling with turbulence below the waterfall — at least in the part in the front; in the back there is a lot less flow and a lot less turbulence. Isn’t it amazing how much there is to see in such a little bit of a stream?

Btw, do you know my awesome animations to illustrate subcritical and supercritical flow regimes? Poor figurines running up and down escalators like so:

Who enjoys playing with water clearly even more than me? An eager beaver!

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Work took me to Brodowin (a village northeast of Berlin that is situated in a biosphere reserve and does amazing organic farming). The public transport, however, only took me to Chorin, which is a 1h 5min walk away from Brodowin — if you walk at the pace suggested by my app. Not, however, if you come across stuff like this:

This was the first time I’ve spotted evidence of beavers in the wild, and this time I was just walking all by myself through the forest and couldn’t believe my eyes! When I talked to locals later, they were all like “yeah, it’s a real nuisance around here, they flood acres and are really annoying!” but I was absolutely fascinated seeing their dams, and imagining what even better dam they will be able to build if that tree falls in the right direction, across that little stream. Really hope it does!

The water on the left in the picture above looks so weird, btw, because there is a lot of dust and pollen and stuff floating on it, that is stopped by the dam, while some water clearly manages to filter through. And ideally I should have jumped across the little stream to take better pictures, but there is a limit to what I am willing to do for a good picture. If only they had already gnawed that tree down, there would have been a convenient bridge across… But I will be back to check on their progress! :-)

Sightseeing in Berlin? Any excuse for a #wavewatching trip!

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Berlin is full of interesting history to discover … for example that of ships that have gone past on the Spree! :-D

Let’s start with some easy wave watching. In the picture above, you see a ship and its wake (both parts: the turbulent one where the ship has gone, and the feathery wake that forms the V with the ship at its tip). And you can make out the wake of a ship that has already gone round that bend of the Spree: the turbulent part showing a different surface roughness, and reflected remains of the feathery V on the right shore of the Spree. So far, so good!

Below, you see two turbulent wakes: The one of the ship you still see, and then the one of a ship that went the other way, but already went out of the area captured in the picture.

Berlin Cathedral Church seen from across the Spree

And here is a series where you see the feathery wake reach the side of the Spree…

Bode museum and television tower Berlin

…get reflected there…

…and then meet the reflection of the other side of the V to form a checkerboard pattern! Would you have known what’s going on here if you hadn’t spotted the ship just about to leave the picture, or seen the previous images?

Below is another nice one. What happened here? A ship sat there, waiting, and then started moving again right before I took the picture! This is the beginning of a turbulent wake right here.

Reichstag, home of parlament

And below another nice wake plus reflection.

And here you see another feathery wake, plus the turbulent wake of the same ship on the other side of the Spree.

Reichstag, home of parlament

Similar picture as above, except in a different spot…

German Chanellery in Berlin seen across the Spree

Yes, that’s a pretty good representation of what sightseeing trips with me are like ;-)

#kitchenoceanography or #bathtubphysics? Playing with cool phenomena, water and dye

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Some bathtub magic today!

Let’s take a paper kitchen towel and an empty glass.

Squish the paper towel into the empty glass, submerge it upside down into the water aaand…

…when you take it up again, the paper towel is still completely dry! Surprise!

And then my all time favourite, of course:

You are watching seals? I am watching waves!

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On a recent evening stroll with a friend, the seal basin looked like this:

“Do you think there are any seals in there today?” she asked. “Why yes, of course, don’t you see the waves?” I replied. Because obviously in a basin sheltered by the wind and with no moving parts in it except possibly a seal or three, there is no other mechanism that I could imagine that would create such a wave field. Sometimes I wonder what everybody else is thinking about all the time that I am thinking about waves while they aren’t… Who’s missing out on the cooler thoughts, me or them?

Anyway, we got to do some proper seal watching and wave watching, respectively:

Pretty, isn’t it? the wake of a seal. Pay close attention, I might be testing you on this some time soon ;-)

Using giveaways as a tool in science communication. Post #3: Checklist and logistics

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Many big research projects and institutions regularly spend a lot of money on things like pens, mugs, canvas bags, or even pool noodles (I kid you not, one of my former employers did that!), all typically branded with the institution’s or project’s logo, that they give away in large quantities. Many of those are certainly useful and others funny. But since they are already budgeted for, anyway, why not use them as a tool in science communication?

For part 1 on what the literature tells us about giveaways, check out this blog post.
For part 2 on designing an actual giveaway, check out this blog post.

Checklist for a successful giveaway

Now you have a whole bunch of ideas. Maybe you have a clear favorite, maybe there are several. In any case, I like to make sure that my giveaway checks all or most of these boxes:

Is it actually conveying my message?

  • The message is clear both explicitly (in the text) as well as implicitly (in the form & function of the object)
  • The giveaway matches the scicomm goal that I designed it for
  • It is actually suitable for the target audience. That means for some audiences it can be funny (using plays on words or similar), while for others it should only contain facts, graphics, ….
  • It is project specific and not something that any other project would also be able to give away without everybody being completely confused about how it is related to that other project
  • It shows the concept of interest
  • It is made easy to follow up (i.e. find additional information, contact relevant people, …), so the giveaway includes a QR-code, link, or at least the search terms that will lead directly to your project’s website
  • It is something that people can easily integrate in their work/life so they see it often and are reminded of the message

Does it spark joy and the desire to keep it?

  • Something you want to keep, not eat and throw away (Non-branded chocolate hearts! Not project-branded sweets that then aren’t even any good)
  • Useful, so people like to keep it around
  • High quality product (not cheap looking)
  • Sturdy (I HATE it when the clipsy-things on pens break off right away)
  • Attractive design
  • Positive association
  • Can be kept for an appropriately long time (Doesn’t perish quickly, doesn’t break)

A couple more thing to consider: Does the giveaway suit the context it is to be distributed in? Will there be time & people power to explain what it’s all about or is there some information provided? If the giveaway is designed for a specific occasion (science day) and are there statistics on typical audiences? How do you make sure you target (and reach) only specific people, not everybody (so that you connect to the right people and don’t “waste” a lot of giveaways on people who aren’t even interested)? Is it easily mailable/transportable or does it need specialized packaging or something that makes logistics super expensive?

Basically, what I want from my giveaways is that they provide value for free, i.e. make sure your give-aways are products or services that people are happy to receive and to share. This should go without saying, but it’s scary how much stuff I have gotten over the years that I really don’t want in my life but was too polite to refuse in the situation. I have absolutely no use for ugly mugs, I have more pretty ones that I love than I could ever use in my home and my office and my imaginary holiday house (and even my even-more-imaginary seminar space in my future light house). Or key chains — is the one you are trying to give me really so awesome that you think I will be using it? Especially when it’s not even used as a lanyard for a name tag when you are giving it to me, but just an empty key chain?

Using multipliers

When gifts are given with the intention to develop an effect beyond the first level of recipient, using that recipient as multiplier, marketing principles of viral online marketing can be applied (Wilson, 2000):

  • Make it scalable so you can cope with snowballing demand. Or be aware that you might be disappointing people if they want your really cool giveaway but you’ve already run out.
  • Make it easy for the recipient to share the giveaway with others (so maybe not an exclusive dinner invitation, but rather some funny toy or a gif, link, game that can easily be shared electronically)
  • Play on motivations like greed, hunger to be popular, loved, understood to have your message shared. People aren’t sharing because you are asking them to share. If however people feel that it is making them look cool / wise / knowledgeable / whatever to share your stuff, they are going to share your stuff!
  • Place your message into existing communications between people to make it even easier to share, so use Facebook or institutional newsletters, booths at fairs that would be there whether you ask them to hand out a couple of your flyers or not, …
  • Use someone else’s resources to share your message (e.g. affiliate programs that place texts or graphics on someone else’s webpages so that someone else’s infrastructure is conveying your message)
  • Give away something that provokes reactions / initiates conversations by other people when they see it, so that recipient is often engaged in dialogue about the message, and thus is both reminded about it all the time as well as acting as a multiplier, thus doing your job for you.

Next steps

Now. Are you ready to come up with a giveaway for your project that ticks all the boxes of this and the two previous blog posts? Then you should check out #scicommchall on Monday, because (spoiler alert!) designing a giveaway will be April’s #scicommchall! :-)

Literature

Wilson, R. F. (2000) The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing. Web Marketing Today, Issue 70, February 1, 2000