DAVID SCHMIDT has often been bothered by the annoying habit shower curtains
have of billowing inwards and sticking to him during a shower. The prevailing
explanation is that this is caused by hot air in the cubicle rising. But when
Schmidt saw it happening before the shower had warmed up, he decided to apply
his professional expertise as a professor of engineering at the University of
Massachusetts.
Schmidt mapped the forces involved—using a model he had developed to
predict air and droplet flow in aircraft engines—and found the shower
spray creates a vortex of air that sucks the…
