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[Phys-l] stagnant air?



Yesterday I observed a strange phenomenon on my LAMB-V (large angular momentum bi-wheeled vehicle), also known as a motorcycle, as I rode home in the cold following a drizzly day. I was watching the water droplets on my windscreen and surprised to see the droplets in the lower middle of the screen not moving at all, even at 50+ mph. I fully did not expect this because it indicates to me a stagnant zone on the front of the windscreen. When I got home I looked at the profile, and I think that the headlight sticks out enough that it “casts” a windstream upward far enough out from the windscreen so that the air might actually be still in the lower middle. If I’m really adventurous, I might create some tell-tales and stick them on the screen just to be sure that it wasn’t an extreme surface tension (it was about 45 F) effect.

Bill Nettles