MIT researchers solve the question of how to snap spaghetti into only two pieces
33 replies, posted
http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-mathematicians-solve-age-old-spaghetti-mystery-0813
If you happen to have a box of spaghetti in your pantry, try this experiment: Pull out a single spaghetti stick and hold it at both ends. Now bend it until it breaks. How many fragments
did you make? If the answer is three or more, pull out another stick and try again. Can you break the noodle in two? If not, you’re in very good company.
The spaghetti challenge has flummoxed even the likes of famed physicist Richard Feynman ’39, who once spent a good portion of an evening breaking pasta and looking for a
theoretical explanation for why the sticks refused to snap in two.
Feynman’s kitchen experiment remained unresolved until 2005, when physicists from France pieced together a theory to describe the forces at work when spaghetti — and any long,
thin rod — is bent. They found that when a stick is bent evenly from both ends, it will break near the center, where it is most curved. This initial break triggers a “snap-back” effect and a
bending wave, or vibration, that further fractures the stick. Their theory, which won the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize, seemed to solve Feynman’s puzzle. But a question remained: Could
spaghetti ever be coerced to break in two?
The answer, according to a new MIT study, is yes — with a twist. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that they
have found a way to break spaghetti in two, by both bending and twisting the dry noodles. They carried out experiments with hundreds of spaghetti sticks, bending and twisting them
with an apparatus they built specifically for the task. The team found that if a stick is twisted past a certain critical degree, then slowly bent in half, it will, against all odds, break in
two.
The researchers say the results may have applications beyond culinary curiosities, such as enhancing the understanding of crack formation and how to control fractures in other
rod-like materials such as multifiber structures, engineered nanotubes, or even microtubules in cells.
“It will be interesting to see whether and how twist could similarly be used to control the fracture dynamics of two-dimensional and three-dimensional materials,” says co-author Jörn
Dunkel, associate professor of physical applied mathematics at MIT. “In any case, this has been a fun interdisciplinary project started and carried out by two brilliant and persistent
students — who probably don’t want to see, break, or eat spaghetti for a while.”
From his model, he found that, if a 10-inch-long spaghetti stick is first twisted by about 270 degrees and then bent, it will snap in two, mainly due to two effects. The snap-back, in
which the stick will spring back in the opposite direction from which it was bent, is weakened in the presence of twist. And, the twist-back, where the stick will essentially unwind to its
original straightened configuration, releases energy from the rod, preventing additional fractures.
http://news.mit.edu/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/crack-control-1.gif
http://news.mit.edu/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/crack-control-2.gif
Related
https://youtu.be/ADD7QlQoFFI
who thought spaghetti was such serious business
there's something really amusing about seeing thousands of dollars of research and slow-motion stress analyses of fucking bent spaghetti
truly we live in a society
Important work. Thank god this has been solved.
As funny as it is, it's a pretty important discovery to think-beam theory in stress/strain and can be useful to drive innovation in materials of this size.
Well, I just spent a few minutes snapping spaghetti. That's really neat. Can't wait to impress some people by showing them some pretty advanced physics in the form of breaking pasta.
so is holding it close to the center to snap not an option or what
had a hearty chuckle imagining a bunch of labcoats sitting around snapping spaghetti in half like "nope not this time"
....this is difficult? what?
You are the chosen one
Were you doing it from the edges?
Wait there was a BBC kids show or something years ago that taught how to break spaghetti into two by twisting it
No, why on earth would you?
Literally read the article, dude.
holy fuck I'm boiling water for spaghetti as I read this, gotta try this
MIT doesn't have this problem because they're sponsored by almost every big business simply to just get a look at what MIT does.
its the craziest thing but the most simple mundane problems in this world always seem to have insane physics. things like pendulums or drooping chains have driven serious math duscovery.
it's easy to forget that even the most mundane things we do in life are usually driven by very complex systems
this study was obviously funded by Big Spaghetti to get people to snap all of their spaghetti and go buy more
ya its insane what math is required for something as simple as water flowing through a hose or a metal surface rubbing against another. there's no such thing as an actual simple machine, its all mindboggling complex to accurately model.
It literally says nothing about why you would want to do this.
Big Spag uses cancerogenic GMO pasta
When I finish cooking my spaghetti I use a knife and fork to slice it up into inch-sized pieces which I then cover with ketchup and hotdogs
Since when does pure math need a reason?
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/249570/b04217df-d03f-4cef-ba28-d6fc6d6b731a/those-are-a-few-of-the-concepts-and-objects-studied-25996933~2.png
You shouldn’t be snapping your spaghetti anyway.
Found the luddite.
Lighten up, will you.
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