Experiments determined the fractal dimensions and other dynamical invariants of the attractors. A precision velocity measurement technique was developed and used to determine velocities with an order of magnitude higher resolution than past experiments. The predicted velocity jump was observed. A laboratory experiment on a rapidly rotating flow demonstrated that for a wide range of conditions a single persistent vortex forms in a rapidly rotating turbulent flow. This laboratory model of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter was discussed on a PBS Nova program.
Similar phenomena occur in simple mathematical models as well as in biology.
Statistics of the flow are given by Levy probability distribution functions, which have long been studied by mathematicians but not observed previously in physics. The onset of convection in a thin layers of fluid heat from below is marked by two distinct types of instabilities, one leading to a hexagonal pattern and the other to a drained spot. This draining instability is expected to be important in experiments in space on fundamental fluid dynamics and on containerless manufacturing.