# @stem_antics on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DYoEl5aAykv
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/65777396-stem-antics-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/27f4383b74.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-05-22T03:44:10.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Stem Antics (@stem_antics) — https://gondola.cc/stem_antics

## Caption

This is not a designed pattern. Every single cell you see on this glaze formed on its own through a process called Benard-Marangoni convection.

Here is what is happening:

	•	A thin layer of warm mirror glaze is poured over a cold surface
	•	The temperature difference between the top and bottom of the glaze layer creates an unstable density gradient
	•	Warmer, less dense fluid rises while cooler, denser fluid sinks
	•	Simultaneously, surface tension varies across the cooling surface because surface tension is temperature-dependent
	•	These competing forces organize the fluid into hexagonal convection cells without any external template

The web-like borders you see are where cooler fluid is sinking downward, collecting pigment and cocoa butter at the margins of each cell. The clear centers are where warmer fluid is rising. This is the exact same physics that governs atmospheric weather cells, ocean circulation patterns, and convection in stellar atmospheres.

What determines the size and regularity of the cells comes down to two dimensionless numbers. The Rayleigh number (Ra) captures the buoyancy-driven component based on the thermal gradient, fluid viscosity, and layer thickness. The Marangoni number (Ma) captures the surface-tension-driven component. When either exceeds a critical threshold, the fluid transitions from static conduction to organized convective flow.

A cake did that. No algorithm. No stencil. Just physics self-organizing at the interfacial scale.

#stemantics #benardcells #marangoniconvection #fluiddynamics #convectioncells

## Stats

- **Views:** 20,846
- **Likes:** 504
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 2

## Tags

fluiddynamics, benardcells, convectioncells, marangoniconvection, stemantics

---
Copyright (c) Gondola