A study has been made of laminar and turbulent columns of liquids issuing from capillary tubes in order to determine the effects of turbulence on the stability of liquid jets and to establish the influence of liquid turbulence on the droplet size distributions after breakup. For wafer injection into stagnant air, it was found that the stability curve is bounded by a laminar portion characterized by a very low initial disturbance amplitude [ln(a/delta(o,L)) = 22], where a is the jet radius and delta(o) is the initial disturbance amplitude, and a fully developed turbulent portion characterized by a very high initial disturbance amplitude [ln(a/delta(o,T)) approximate to 4.85]. In the transition region, ln(a/delta(o)) is not single valued; it decreases with increasing Reynolds number. If was also found that, in the absence of aerodynamic effects, turbulent jets are as stable as laminar jets. For this mode of breakup the sole effect of turbulence is to propagate initial disturbances with amplitudes that are orders of magnitude larger than those of laminar jets (delta(o,T) = 28 x 10(6) delta(o,L)). The growth rates of initial disturbances are essentially the same for both laminar and turbulent columns; they are in agreement with the theoretical values derived by Weber. For laminar flow conditions, the optimum wavelength (lambda(opt)) corresponding to the fastest-growing disturbance is equal to 4.45D, which is exactly the theoretical value derived by Weber. For turbulent flow conditions, lambda(opt) = 9.2D, which is approximately 2 times the optimum wavelength calculated by using Weber's theory.