The Strange Science of a Non-Newtonian Fluid
Is it a Liquid or a Solid?
Oobleck is named from a Dr. Seuss book called Bartholomew and the Oobleck and is a non-toxic mixture of one to two parts cornstarch and one part water (often with added food coloring.) It's classified as a non-Newtonian Fluid and can act either as a solid or a fluid depending on how much force is applied to it.
Why Oobleck Acts so Strange
Non-Newtonian fluids are defined as solutions that change their viscosity (becoming thicker or thinner) when force is applied. So why exactly does oobleck (a Dilatant or Shear Thickening Fluid)act like a solid if a strong enough is used?
Remember that this is made of two things; water and cornstarch. If you slowly push your hand into the oobleck, it able to maintain it's equilibrium meaning that the water and cornstarch are able to stay mixed up, letting it act like a liquid.
However if you were apply a sudden force, like hitting with a hammer, the water molecules are pushed away while leaving just the cornstarch. This is the same reason why you see a dry spot in wet sand after you step on it.
While still mixed together, the water acts like a lubricant allowing the cornstarch particles to easily slide past each other. However when the water has been jarred away, the friction between the cornstarch dramatically increases, causing it to clump and act like a solid.
After the force has stopped, the water is able to mix back in, making it act like a liquid again.
Some Cool Effects of Oobleck
Any force works to cause oobleck to take on properties of a solid where it be a punch:
Running across it
But one of the coolest is to use speakers to make it DANCE!!
And if you want to see it in slow motion, just click here!! Enjoy!!
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Image Sources:
Non-Newtonian Fluid
Shear Graph
Water and Cornstarch Mixed
Water and Cornstarch Seperated
Shear Thickening Fluid
That video of the liquid on the speaker is alien looking
That's how the invasion begins! Muuaahahaha! Lol
I want an oobleck bed :)
Haha, that could be interesting. Just don't plop down to quickly or it might really hurt!
ahaha. Indeed!
What the! Haha! It's such an awesome coincidence that you posted an explanation to this. I hope you ran across this mention in my panna cotta post. I'm going to replace the link there to a link to this post instead :D
Hehe, I did see that. Quite the synchronicity! We've got oobleck on the brain. Lol
That's awesome, thanks for the link! :)
I hope it brought in at least one upvote or a new follower your way :D
It might have..it's so hard to know. I know I ended up going to bed shortly after we talked on that.
Btw, I was thinking of highlighting your Day in the Clouds story on the podcast but I've not gotten a chance to really catch up on it myself. Would you give me a plot/synopsis on it so I can do it justice?
Oh wow! Sure thing! I'll leave you a PM on chat later with the synopsis. I'm sorry I haven't been able to listen in on STP for quite some time. My work computer doesn't have speakers, and my ears have been increasingly preoccupied with dictation work.
That sounds good, tyty.
Meh, no worries...I've not been able to keep up on your book, lol.
I guess that makes us even :) I do try to keep up with all your posts though. Plus, I've added you on steemvoter so that I won't miss voting on anything.
Tyty!
I'm still all manual voting, but I do try my best to catch your posts. :)
I really try to avoid automating my vote as well, but since I've already established trust that some users will always generate noteworthy content, then I might as well get my vote in to show my support before I completely miss the first payout :)
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This was a really good post @sykochica, kids always love Ooblek. Non-Newtonian fluids are really cool.
Thank you! It seemed like a great one to try to inject a little bit of science with something they'd already been exposed to.
The non-Newtonians fluids are pretty wicked. I spent a lot of time going through many of the others that were more time dependent as well as both thickening and thinning ones, but it seemed to get to burly an article to cram them all together. It'd be cool to do a write-up on printer ink..that stuff is really pretty fascinating.