At the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Paulo Arratia and Douglas Jerolmack from the University of Pennsylvania were asked by the Philadelphia Orchestra to help them find a stage configuration that would minimize the spread of the virus among musicians and the audience. To see and track the aerosols flowing out of wind and brass instruments, the researchers placed a humidifier at the bell of the instruments to create a mist (Physics of Fluids 10.1063/5.0098273). Tracking the particulates by shining light on the mist and observing it with a high-speed camera, they found that the instruments produce particles similar in size to those exhaled during normal breathing and speech. They also discovered that the particle flows from most instruments dissipate into ambient air after travelling about 2 m - exactly the same as social distancing rules set during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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