Strange water wave can bounce a droplet thousands of times

A single rolling wave can bounce water droplets up and down for up to an hour and a half.Researchers stumbled upon it while studying how wave patterns appear underwater

To Carmela Padavich-Callaghan

An unusual kind of water wave can be repeatedly thrown into the air thousands of times without breaking the droplets.

For the past decade, Nicolas Mujica and his collaborators at the University of Chile have studied how wave patterns emerge on a water surface when it is rocked or turbulent. Recently, they made the serendipitous discovery that under the right conditions, waves can bounce water droplets up and down thousands of times in succession.

Mujica …