Seahorse’s Head
Ever since I was a kid I found seahorses to be really fascinating. This is probably true for most of us – seahorses look like creatures that were concocted in some weird Greek myth or as a part of the Hollywood sci-fi creature feature. Unlike the extremely streamlined bodies of most fish, which look ideal-made for fast motion in water, there doesn’t seem to be any ready-made evolutionary explanation for the shape of seahorse’s head. Until now that is. Some really funky and meticulous research showed that seahorse’s head creates extremely low amount of perturbance in calm waters. This comes handy when the creatures that you hunt – in this case tiny copepods – are exceedingly sensitive to even the smallest amount of perturbance. So it turns out that in order to understand the shape of seahorse head we need to reach to fluid dynamics, a very subtle and difficult area of Physics. This story reminded me how some really fundamental principles of Physics can pop up in all sorts of fascinating and unexpected places.
About the Author
Bojan Tunguz
Bojan Tunguz was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he and his family fled during the civil war for the neighboring Croatia. Over the past two decades he has studied, lived and worked in the United States. He is a theoretical physicist with degrees from Stanford and University of Illinois. Tunguz has taught physics at several prominent liberal arts colleges and has been writing about physics, science and technology for more than a decade. He also has a wide spectrum of interests, and reads and writes about current events, society, culture, religion and politics. Over the years he has reviewed many of the books that he has read, and posted his reviews on various online outlets. In 2011 he had become a top 10 reviewer on Amazon.com, where he continues to be very active. Aside from reading and writing, Tunguz enjoys traveling, digital photography, hiking, and fitness. He resides with his wife in Indiana. You can follow my review updates on the following pages as well: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tunguzreview Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tunguzreviews Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104312842297641697463/posts
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