By vibrating a shallow layer of oil, physicists have created standing wave patterns that alternate between pentagons (pictured) and stars.
Jean Rajchenbach and his colleagues at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France produced the patterns by shaking a 7-millimetre column of silicon oil up and down by up to 2 mm, between 7 and 11 times per second. The authors calculated that three separate surface waves passing through the oil interact to produce the shapes. The patterns created had triangular, pentagonal and hexagonal symmetries, depending on the frequency and amplitude of the vibration, but not the shape of the container holding the oil.
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Shaking oil into stars. Nature 495, 144–145 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/495144e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/495144e
