Real water can't produce infinite vorticity: molecular scale kicks in before zero length scale

stevenstrogatz · x · 2026-09-09

Addressing whether real water could suddenly produce infinite vorticity, Strogatz says no: long before reaching zero length scale, the flow hits the molecular scale, where treating water as a continuous fluid no longer makes physical sense—a physical boundary on the Navier-Stokes singularity discussion.

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