Emergence of Macroscopic Directed Motion in Water Systems

http://phys.org/news/2013-11-swarming-video.html
"A team of researchers from several facilities in France has devised a means for modeling coordinated swarming behavior in a controlled environment. (...) To get the balls moving the researchers applied a small electric charge. Doing so caused chaotic movement at first, but as time passed, the researchers observed that the balls formed a swarm that moved around the track as a single entity."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...73.html#videos
Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids, Antoine Bricard, Jean-Baptiste Caussin, Nicolas Desreumaux, Olivier Dauchot, Denis Bartolo, Nature 503, 95–98 (07 November 2013)

I suggest that the microscopic mechanism triggering the swarm moving "around the track as a single entity" may be similar to that triggering the "waterfall" described in an old paper of mine:

http://www.wbabin.net/valev/valev2.pdf
August 12, 2004, Biased Thermal Motion and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Pentcho Valev: "What if one punches a small hole in one of the plates, just above the surface of the pool? Will the lifted water leak through the hole and fall, thereby dissipating its potential energy as heat? If this happens, one will have a perpetual macroscopic cycle capable of producing work.. Needless to say, such a cycle contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. No matter how weak the waterfall is, theoretically it can rotate a waterwheel..."

The "floating water bridge" is based on the same molecular mechanism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1At3Gcd-No
Floating Water Bridge - Elmar Fuchs (SETI Talks)

Pentcho Valev

http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/...cs/643/1/430_1
AIP Conf. Proc. 643, pp. 430-435, Pentcho Valev 2002: "...as two vertical constant-charge capacitor plates partially dip into a pool of a liquid dielectric (e.g. water), the liquid between them rises high above the surface of the rest of the liquid in the pool. Evidently, if one punches a macroscopic hole in one of the plates, nothing could prevent the liquid between the plates from leaking out through the hole and generating an eternal waterfall outside the capacitor. This hypothesis has been discussed on many occasions but so far no serious counter-argument has been raised."

Experimental demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6KAH1JpdPg
"Liquid Dielectric Capacitor"

More arguments:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teachin...es/node44.html
"However, in experiments in which a capacitor is submerged in a dielectric liquid the force per unit area exerted by one plate on another is observed to decrease... (...) This apparent paradox can be explained by taking into account the difference in liquid pressure in the field filled space between the plates and the field free region outside the capacitor."

The pressure difference will constantly pump water through a small hole punched in one of the plates, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.. In FIG. 1 below the water rises to a height h - the hole could be drilled at h/2. Will water leak out through the hole? If the pressure inside the capacitor is indeed greater, the answer is YES:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~yec...MagnFluids.pdf
Can. J . Phys., 60. 449 (1982), Fluids in electric and magnetic fields: Pressure variation and stability, I. BREVIK: "FIG. 1. Two charged condenser plates partly immersed in a dielectric liquid. (...) FIG. 2. The hydrostatic pressure variation from point 1 to point 5 in Fig. 1."

Pentcho Valev

There is a problem in physics that acts like the face of Medusa the Gorgon - on seeing it, physicists get petrified and remain so until the problem is completely forgotten. If a constant-charge parallel-plate capacitor is totally immersed in a liquid dielectric, e.g. water, the force of attraction between the plates SHARPLY DECREASES - for water, it becomes 80 times weaker.. However, if instead of liquid dielectric one thrusts some solid dielectric between the plates, the force of attraction the plates exert on one another (slightly) INCREASES. In both cases the dielectric between the plates - liquid or solid - polarizes and the picture of polarization is quite standard; yet when the dielectric is liquid (water) the force of attraction between the plates decreases by a factor of 80 while in the case of solid dielectric the force of attraction increases. Where does the drastic difference come from?

Two things are su 1. The sharp decrease of the force of attraction in the case of liquid dielectric "cannot be explained by electrical forces alone". 2. In the case of liquid dielectric, a "mysterious" pressure emerges between the plates that pushes them apart and so counteracts the original electric force of attraction between them:

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Elec.../dp/0486439240
Classical Electricity and Magnetism: Second Edition (Dover Books on Physics), Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Melba Phillips, p. 114: "This means that if a system maintained at constant charge is totally surrounded by a dielectric liquid all mechanical forces will drop in the ratio 1/k. A factor 1/k is frequently included in the expression for Coulomb's law to indicate this decrease in force. The physical significance of this reduction of force, which is required by energy considerations, is often somewhat mysterious. It is difficult to see on the basis of a field theory why the interaction between two charges should be dependent upon the nature or condition of the intervening material, and therefore the inclusion of an extra factor 1/k in Coulomb's law lacks a physical explanation." p.115: "Therefore the decrease in force... cannot be explained by electrical forces alone." pp.115-116: "Thus the decrease in force that is experienced between two charges when they are immersed in a dielectric liquid can be understood only by considering the effect of the pressure of the liquid on the charges themselves. In accordance with the philosophy of the action-at-a-distance theory, no change in the purely electrical interaction between the charges takes place."

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-E.../dp/0763738271
Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory: A Modern Perspective, Tai Chow, p. 267: "Calculations of the forces between charged conductors immersed in a liquid dielectric always show that the force is reduced by the factor K. There is a tendency to think of this as representing a reduction in the electrical forces between the charges on the conductors, as though Coulomb's law for the interaction of two charges should have the dielectric constant included in its denominator. This is incorrect, however. The strictly electric forces between charges on the conductors are not influenced by the presence of the dielectric medium. The medium is polarized, however, and the interaction of the electric field with the polarized medium results in an INCREASED FLUID PRESSURE ON THE CONDUCTORS that reduces the net forces acting on them."

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teachin...es/node44.html
"However, in experiments in which a capacitor is submerged in a dielectric liquid the force per unit area exerted by one plate on another is observed to decrease... (...) This apparent paradox can be explained by taking into account the difference in liquid pressure in the field filled space between the plates and the field free region outside the capacitor."

Pentcho Valev