Skip to main content

Image
resea3

Patterns in turbulence: emergence of order amidst chaos

The vast majority of flows in our daily experience are turbulent and yet we see patterns all around us. Ordered arrays of cloud streets, (turbulent) wind-driven waves with distinct wavelengths, and---for a more exotic example---Jupiter's red spot all testify to the ability of ordered patterns to arise and persist amidst turbulent fluctuations. How such large scale patterns emerge and persist is a fundamental open question; from a practical perspective, one would like to know how turbulent fluctuations affect the large-scale patterns.