[bob29]

Explain the trash islands

[thereddaikon]

I dont think its accurate to equate floating trash and something dissolved in solution. Their behavior is likely to be very different.

[thefurdrake]

Explain the lack of sodium islands.

E: "Cesium dissolves easily in water."[1]

[1] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclide-basics-cesium-137

[mortenjorck]

This is presumably being downvoted for the unnecessary “gotcha” phrasing, but it is an interesting point of distinction. I have an intuitive guess as to the principles at work, but I don’t really know the actual physics.

[JumpCrisscross]

> but I don’t really know the actual physics

Vastly oversimplifying: two versus three dimensions.

[rcme]

I don’t think that explains it at all. So garbage floats (more or less), so can be modeled as a 2D plane. But why do patches form? Why isn’t the garbage distributed uniformly across the plane? And why doesn’t that same mechanism apply in 3D?