In a surprising twist, a graduate student at UMass Amherst discovered a strange new fluid behavior that seems to defy thermodynamics.
While experimenting with oil, water, and magnetized nickel particles, he found that no matter how hard the mixture was shaken, it would always return to the same elegant urn shape. This behavior sparked curiosity among physicists, who eventually traced the cause to unusually strong magnetism altering the way the fluids interact. Though it has no immediate use, the finding opens new frontiers in soft-matter science.
A Surprising Discovery in Soft Matter
A team of researchers, led by a physics graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has discovered a surprising new kind of fluid they’re calling a “shape-recovering liquid.” This unusual mixture appears to challenge long-standing ideas rooted in the laws of thermodynamics. Their findings, published on April 4 in Nature Physics, describe a blend of oil, water, and magnetized particles that, when shaken, consistently re-forms into a shape resembling the elegant curves of a Grecian urn.
“Imagine your favorite Italian salad dressing,” says Thomas Russell, Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst and one of the paper’s senior authors. “It’s made up of oil, water, and spices, and before you pour it onto your salad, you shake it up so that all the ingredients mix.” In salad dressing, those tiny spice particles help oil and water, normally incapable of mixing, blend temporarily in a process known as emulsification, which is governed by thermodynamic principles.
Magnetic Twist on a Classic Experiment
Emulsification plays a critical role in countless technologies beyond the kitchen. Graduate student Anthony Raykh was experimenting in the lab with a scientific version of salad dressing, only instead of spices, he used magnetized nickel particles, “because you can engineer all sorts of interesting materials with useful properties when a fluid contains magnetic particles,” says Raykh. He made his mixture, shook it up – “and, in a complete surprise, the mixture formed this beautiful, pristine urn-shape.” Even more surprising, the same shape returned every time, no matter how vigorously he shook it.
“I thought ‘what is this thing?’ So, I walked up and down the halls of the Polymer Science and Engineering Department, knocking on my professors’ doors, asking them if they knew what was going on,” Raykh continues. No one did. But it caught the eye of Russell and David Hoagland, professor of polymer science and engineering at UMass Amherst, the paper’s other senior author and a specialist in soft materials.
Solving the Mystery with Simulations
The team conducted experiments and reached out to colleagues at Tufts and Syracuse universities to construct simulations. Together, the collaborative effort determined that magnetism, strong magnetism, explains the inexplicable phenomenon Raykh had discovered.
“When you look very closely at the individual nanoparticles of magnetized nickel that form the boundary between the water and oil,” says Hoagland, “you can get extremely detailed information on how different forms assemble. In this case, the particles are magnetized strongly enough that their assembly interferes with the process of emulsification, which the laws of thermodynamics describe.”
Bending the Rules of Emulsification
Typically, particles added to an oil-and-water mixture decrease the tension at the interface between the two liquids, allowing them to mix. But in a twist, particles that are magnetized strongly enough actually increase the interfacial tension, bending the boundary between oil and water into a graceful curve.
Pushing the Boundaries of Possibility
“When you see something that shouldn’t be possible, you have to investigate,” says Russell.
While there’s no application for his novel discovery yet, Raykh is excited to see how this never-before-seen state can influence the field of soft-matter physics.
Reference: “Shape-recovering liquids” by Anthony Raykh, Joseph D. Paulsen, Alex McGlasson, Chaitanya Joshi, Timothy J. Atherton, Hima Nagamanasa Kandula, David A. Hoagland and Thomas P. Russell, 4 April 2025, Nature Physics.
DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-02865-1
This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
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11 Comments
A physics grad student accidentally uncovered a mysterious fluid mixture that always reforms into a perfect urn shape, defying expectations from standard fluid dynamics.
VERY GOOD!!!
Inviscid, incompressible, and isotropic spaces can form spatiotemporal vortices through topological phase transitions. These spatiotemporal vortices can form extremely complex spatiotemporal structures through spin and self-organization. The physical essence of mass is the interaction nucleation of spacetime vortices. There is no eternal mass, only eternal fluid mechanics.
For a long time, so-called peer-reviewed publications (including Physical Review Letters, Science, Nature, etc.) have ignored the objective properties of space, distorted mathematics, and misled science. They stubbornly insist that the two sets of cobalt-60 rotating in opposite directions are two objects that are mirror images of each other. Many people, even some IA (such as Deepseek), have been misled by their pseudoscientific theories.
Fighting against rampant pseudoscience, physics still has a long way to go. If researchers are interested, please browse https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/23079945169.
Fluid mechanics is ubiquitous. Absolute space is not just a background, it nurtures humanity wisdom and life with its ideal fluid properties. In the vast ocean of ideal fluids of absolute space, there are no Gods, only eternal fluid mechanics.
you need to redefine your concept of space and all issues will be dissolved
What is space?
What is time?
Are time and space the foundation of spatiotemporal motion?
Do scientific research and physics experiments not require time and space?
Can physics, which ignores time and space, distorts mathematics, and misleads science, be called science?
For decades, so-called academic publications, including Physical Review Letters, Nature,Science, etc. have been spreading and promoting the pseudoscience that two sets of cobalt-60 can form mirror images of each other when rotated in reverse without self-examination. Do these so-called peer-reviewed publications really not know what is dirty and ugly?
If you are truly interested in science, please browse https://scitechdaily.com/microscope-spacecrafts-most-precise-test-of-key-component-of-the-theory-of-general-relativity/#comment-869260.
This doesn’t outright violate thermodynamics—but it certainly challenges intuitive expectations about how liquids and interfaces behave.
This doesn’t truly violate the laws of thermodynamics, but rather:
Challenges our understanding of how energy is minimized in complex systems.
Demonstrates non-equilibrium behavior leading to new equilibrium structures, stabilized by magnetic interactions, not just surface tension.
The increased interfacial tension suggests that the system finds a lower energy by forming a curved interface rather than a flat one—very counterintuitive!
Intuition is not science, and it may mislead science.
You’re absolutely right that science must go beyond intuition—yet intuition often flags when our current models might be incomplete or due for refinement. My comment wasn’t relying on intuition as evidence, but rather pointing out that this self-shaping liquid behavior challenges what we expect based on classical thermodynamics.
In fact, I’m currently developing a theoretical framework called Space-Potential Theory (SPT), and a branch of it—SPT-Thermodynamics—aims to reinterpret thermodynamic quantities like energy, entropy, and temperature as manifestations of dynamic space-potential fields. From this view, these unusual fluid behaviors may be better understood as resulting from hidden interactions within the potential structure of space itself.
So no, this phenomenon doesn’t violate thermodynamics per se—but it may hint at a deeper layer beneath it, one that classical models don’t fully capture. That’s what I’m exploring with SPT.
VERY GOOD!
Please further consider:
1. Why does physics today enjoy the convenience brought by ideal fluids for work, life, and engineering simulations, but reject the existence of ideal fluids?
2. Why does physics today reject the possibility of using time and space as initial conditions, despite the fact that scientific research and physical experiments cannot be separated from space and time?
3. Why is physics today so obsessed with ignoring time and space, searching everywhere for so-called God and Devil particles?
4. What is the difference between dynamic geometric shapes and physical reality?
5. Is dynamic geometry a physical reality?
6. How do you define absolute stillness in nature?
7. Why can mathematics become the language of science?
If you are interested, you can browse https://scitechdaily.com/microscope-spacecrafts-most-precise-test-of-key-component-of-the-theory-of-general-relativity/#comment-869260 and https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/26435757126.
1. Ideal Fluids: Mathematical Convenience vs Physical Reality
Question: Why does physics today enjoy the convenience brought by ideal fluids for work, life, and engineering simulations, but reject the existence of ideal fluids?
SPT Interpretation: SPT proposes that space itself may act as a kind of real, dynamic medium—a field with fluid-like properties. This challenges the idea that ideal fluids are mere mathematical abstractions. Within SPT, what is now considered “ideal” may, in fact, be physically real at a more fundamental level.
2. Space and Time as Initial Conditions
Question: Why does physics today reject the possibility of using time and space as initial conditions, despite their inseparability from physical experiments?
SPT Interpretation: In SPT, the space-potential field inherently defines the structure and evolution of both space and time. Thus, initial conditions in SPT naturally include the configuration of space and time as real, causal entities—not just coordinates. This reconciles the role of time and space in theory and experiment.
3. The Obsession with Particles over Fields
Question: Why is physics today so obsessed with ignoring time and space, searching everywhere for so-called God and Devil particles?
SPT Interpretation: SPT shifts the focus from particles to the active dynamics of space itself. Particles are seen as manifestations or disturbances in the space-potential field. Instead of searching for ultimate particles, SPT redefines the foundation—space itself becomes the primary actor.
4. Dynamic Geometry and Physical Reality
Question: What is the difference between dynamic geometric shapes and physical reality? Is dynamic geometry a physical reality?
SPT Interpretation: In SPT, geometry is not just a mathematical tool—it is an expression of the physical state of space. As the space-potential evolves, it shapes geometry dynamically, making it not just a representation but a real, causal structure of physical reality.
5. The Nature of Absolute Stillness
Question: How do you define absolute stillness in nature?
SPT Interpretation: Absolute stillness corresponds to a perfect, undisturbed state of the space-potential field—no gradients, no fluctuations, no interactions. It is the pure vacuum of SPT, a baseline from which all motion and energy emerge.
6. Mathematics as the Language of Science
Question: Why can mathematics become the language of science?
SPT Interpretation: Mathematics is the natural language of relationships, structures, and dynamics. Since SPT treats space as a structured, dynamic entity, its evolution is naturally describable in mathematical terms. The reason mathematics fits nature so well may lie in the very structure of the space-potential field.