In every episode of this show, normal behaviour, normal patterns, and normal modes of thinking eventually end up in the sometimes bizarre, sometimes quirky place called the Twilight Zone. While one could argue how best to qualify 'normal', these shows give me a framework for entering into the details of microfluidics. If microfluidics is defined as the study of fluids at the microscale, then it would seem fair to ask what abnormal, Twilight Zone, behaviour shows up that makes me doubt my intuition that has served me so well for so long. Barring stranger occurrences, such as atomic quantum fluids, I consider the fluids in question to be three-dimensional. Limiting all three dimensions to the microscale would seem overkill and unnecessary (though I could be wrong). So, do two of the three dimensions need to be at the microscale for special behaviour to begin? would one do? If only one dimension, I could envision a very large but finite sheet of fluid. Why you would want such a formation, or how you would produce it, I do not know.
Now it would seem to me that the dimenensional 'restrictions' go hand in hand with what I have called a fluid's special behaviour. I believe that this has something to do with the Reynolds number. And that in turn gives me an idea of the importance, or lack thereof, of inertia. This number applies to small objects -- microorganisms? -- moving in bulk fluid, like water; but does this also relate to small volumes of fluid moving through some polymeric microfluidic device? Or does it relate to the small 'particles' that people wish to manipulate through the fluid contained in these tiny devices? Or is it both?