Fluid dynamicist here. While I have not read this article in full, it's worth noting that there is no reason to believe the critical Reynolds number for pipe fl

Fluid dynamicist here. While I have not read this article in full, it's worth noting that there is no reason to believe the critical Reynolds number for pipe flow is a constant. There are well known experiments which have produced laminar pipe flow at a Reynolds number of about 100,000, 50 times higher than what this piece claims is possible. This is done through careful vibration isolation among other techniques, to eliminate as many potential disturbances in the flow as possible. This idea is very old. Reynolds himself was able to produce laminar flow at a Reynolds number of about 13,000. See here for a review: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-fluid-122109-160652 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-fluid-1221... The suggestion that these "puffs" are produced and die at the same rate a particular Renolds number needs to assume a certain production rate, which is going to vary from setup to setup. Consequently there is no constant transition Reynolds number for all setups. I think the birth and death rate idea is okay, but I suspect the popular level writer oversimplified the result. I have not read the original paper but recall a talk that I think was by Hof on the same subject, and I recall that they are aware of this. (Also, if it was unclear, this critical Reynolds number only applies to long pipes. Any other changes can affect this greatly. You can have laminar flows at Reynolds numbers of 10^5 or higher in some applications. I see this mistake more often than I would like...)