Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night is one of the Dutch post-Impressionist's best-known masterpieces, famous for its dreamy swirling evocation of the landscape he saw from the window of an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. But it turns out that the artist's flowing strokes depict some fascinating science too.
Researchers from China and France have analysed the brushstrokes and found that they unintentionally depict complex fluid dynamics. They measured the sizes of whirls/eddies in the painting and their relative distances and intensity and found that they following the mathematical principles of turbulence (see our pick of the best art supplies for your own work).
