]]thumb|right|180px|Laminar and turbulent water flow over the hull of a submarine from an airplane wing]]In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time. Flow that is not turbulent is called laminar flow. The (dimensionless) Reynolds number characterizes whether flow conditions lead to laminar or turbulent flow; e.g. for pipe flow, a Reynolds number above about 4000 (A Reynolds number between 2100 and 4000 is known as transitional flow) will be turbulent. At very low speeds the flow is laminar, i.e., the flow is smooth (though it may involve vortices on a large scale). As the speed increases, at some point the transition is made to turbulent flow. In turbulent flow, unsteady vortices appear on many scales and interact with each other. Drag due to boundary

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