Science in GIFs: Measuring the meanderiness of a river
The meanderiness of a river, its Stølum number, is defined as the length the water travels from source to finish (blue curve) divided by the direct distance (red line). This can change chaotically as a river changes coarse, forming Ox bow lakes. The ratio is often found to converge to (but rarely exceed) 3.14, roughly pi. Via
