Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Van Gogh Painted Perfect Turbulence

August 13, 2006

Van Gogh Painted Perfect Turbulence

Photo by John Hunter of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh seems to be the only painter able to render turbulence with such mathematical precision. “We have examined other apparently turbulent paintings of several artists and find no evidence of Kolmogorov scaling,” says Aragon.

Partially this article, Van Gogh painted perfect turbulence, discusses some interesting science:

Scientists have struggled for centuries to describe turbulent flow — some are said to have considered the problem harder than quantum mechanics. It is still unsolved, but one of the foundations of the modern theory of turbulence was laid by the Soviet scientist Andrei Kolmogorov in the 1940s.

He predicted a particular mathematical relationship between the fluctuations in a flow’s speed and the rate at which it dissipates energy as friction. Kolmogorov’s work led to equations describing the probability of finding a particular velocity difference between any two points in the fluid. These relationships are called Kolmogorov scaling.

But really it just gave me an excuse to post the photo I took of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night on a recent trip to New York City. More photos of Vincent van Gogh paintings: Van Gogh self portrait (Musee d’Orsay) - Irises (the Met, NYC) . NYC travel photos: (the photos from the most recent trip are not posted yet): Metropolitan Museum of Art - Central Park - Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Children’s Museum
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by curiouscat Tags: Science, Students
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2 Responses to “Van Gogh Painted Perfect Turbulence”

Get Your Own Science Art Says:
January 21st, 2007 at 7:19 pm
[...] The site offers various crystals and sculptures created by Bathsheba Grossman. The art itself is very cool and the site includes interesting information on the science represented by the art and the engineering behind creating the art. [...]
Anonymous Says:
May 27th, 2008 at 6:00 am
It is interesting to know that some paintings offer a great contribution to some phenomena. The paintings went beyond its artistic value and extend to a scientific meaning in order to explain a particular phenomenon. The works of Van Gogh and Da Vinci are great examples of art-and-science all rolled into one.