Dolphin playing with the laws of physics
It’s been a crazy busy week, travelling the length of Vancouver Island in a car and now in the middle of teaching a two day course at the Chief Dan George Centre, at Simon Fraser University.
So here’s something out of the blue – literally. From a new read, bird on the moon comes this piece about dolphins who create toruses made of air and play with them.
The young dolphin gives a quick flip of her head, and an undulating silver ring appears–as if by magic–in front of her. The ring is a solid, toroidal bubble two feet across–and yet it does not rise to the surface! It stands erect in the water like the rim of a magic mirror, or the doorway to an unseen dimension. For long seconds the dolphin regards its creation, from varying aspects and angles, with its vision and sonar. Seemingly making a judgement, the dolphin then quickly pulls a small silver donut from the larger structure, which collapses into small bubbles. She then “pushes” the donut, which stays just inches ahead of her rostrum, perhaps 20 feet over a period of up to 10 seconds. Then, stopping again, she regards the twisting ring for a last time and bites it–causing it to collapse into a thousand tiny bubbles which head–as they should–for the water’s surface. After a few moments of reflection, she creates another.
The original article has more amazing stories.
