History

The Plateau–Rayleigh instability is named for Joseph Plateau and Lord Rayleigh. In 1873, Plateau found experimentally that a vertically falling stream of water will break up into drops if its length is greater than about 3.13 to 3.18 times its diameter.[1] Later, Rayleigh showed theoretically that a vertically falling column of non-viscous liquid with a circular cross-section should break up into drops if its length exceeded its circumference, or Pi times its diameter.