Fluid dinamics mimic quantum mechanics

Researchers succeeded to produce the fluidic analogue of a classic quantum experiment in which electrons are confined to a circular "corral" by a ring of ions. In their experiment they filled a circular tray with silicone oil and made it vibrate at a rate just below that required to produce surface waves. When they dropped a single droplet on the surface it began to bounce up and down producing waves that hit the wall, interfered with each other and kept moving the droplet around. At first glance the movement of the droplet seemed chaotic but as time passed and data gathered, it turned out that it was following a decent probability distribution. This pattern is very similar to the movement of an electron placed in a ring of ions.

Although this experiment may seem to most of us as yet another analogy in nature, the situation is much more serious than that! Quantum phenomena are usually unique to our microcosm and are hard to mimic on a macroscopic scale. This experiment is one of the few that helps our limited imagination to have a tiny grasp on the world of subatomic particles and get a clearer picture of quantum mechanics, a discipline that, according to the famous physicist Richard Feynman, "nobody understands".