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Quanta Magazine ·For the curious

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century

by Charlie Wood

Published 2026-08-17 15:11:17+00:00

How does a chaotic swarm of atoms create the perfectly smooth flow of a river?

0:00 / 18:28 · Narrator Algieba

Context

Engineers use the exact same equations to shape airplane wings and forecast hurricanes, treating air and water as perfectly smooth substances. But as this 17 August 2026 piece from Quanta Magazine points out, those equations completely ignore the chaotic buzzing of the atoms underneath. Connecting that microscopic reality to the macroscopic flow of a liquid has been a stubborn problem in physics. Bridging the gap took a twenty-year effort that borrowed concepts from black hole research to completely redefine what a fluid actually is.

Show notes

An account of the two-decade effort to rewrite the mathematical theory of fluids to include the microscopic behavior of atoms. By applying principles of symmetry used to study magnets and black holes, physicists have built a framework that explains how the visible flow of liquids emerges from individual particles. The updated equations allow scientists to track random molecular motion and predict how exotic states of matter will behave.

Read on Quanta Magazine →