A jet of liquid can bounce off of a hot plate without ever touching it. This extension of the Leidenfrost impact – the phenomenon that permits beads of water to skitter throughout a scorching pan – may assist enhance cooling processes, like these utilized in issues starting from nuclear reactors to firefighting.
Though first described practically 300 years in the past, the Leidenfrost impact has solely been examined with fluid droplets, not squirts of liquid. Until…