Lewis Fry Richardson (1922) described turbulence as a self-similar hierarchy of eddies: large eddies break down into smaller ones, transferring kinetic energy downscale until viscosity dissipates it at the Kolmogorov microscale η. This 3D visualization shows the cascade in action — each generation of eddies spawns child eddies, with sizes following l_n ~ l₀ × r^n (ratio r ≈ 0.5), and rotation speeds increasing as v_n ~ ε^(1/3) l_n^(1/3).
"Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity, and little whirls have lesser whirls, and so on to viscosity." — L.F. Richardson, 1922
Richardson cascade — color encodes kinetic energy (blue=large/low-ω, red=small/high-ω)