In a basement laboratory at Haverford College, Monica Kishore and Peter J.J. O’Malley, two undergraduates, have hit a snag in a fluid-dynamics experiment they’re conducting.
The two physics majors are doing research in the laboratory of Jerry P. Gollub, a professor of physics. The experiment they have helped to design requires them to find a way to get tiny plastic beads to hover at the interface between a blue liquid and a clear liquid. Then they will run an electric current through the liquids, and a camera will track the particles’ motions.
But when Mr. O’Malley, a senior, follows their usual protocol of sprinkling the beads onto the liquid, some of them float on the surface instead of sinking to the interface.