Secret of Snapping Spaghetti in SLOW MOTION - Smarter Every Day 127 | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

When you snap a piece of dry spaghetti, it often breaks into multiple pieces due to a phenomenon called cascading fracture, where the curvature of the spaghetti as it straightens out causes it to fracture repeatedly.

Key Insights

• 🤙 Dry spaghetti breaks into multiple pieces due to a phenomenon called cascading fracture.
• 📳 Vibrations during snapping do not significantly contribute to the multiple fracture pattern.
• 🖐️ The curvature of the spaghetti, created by torque, plays a crucial role in causing repeated fractures.
• 💦 Snapping spaghetti under water does not eliminate the multiple fracture pattern.
• 🥳 The point where the already straightened and still curved parts of the spaghetti meet becomes even more curved, leading to additional fractures.
• 🍳 The process of cascading fracture starts anew with each additional break.
• 🚄 Prior research on cascading fracture did not have high-speed camera footage as in this video.

Transcript

(Destin) Looks good to me. Nice. Hey it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day. So I'm gonna show you something today that's fascinating. If you take a normal piece of dry spaghetti. you can do this in your home, and you bend it right up until the point it breaks, it doesn't do what you think it should. It doesn't break into two pieces, it ... Read More

Questions & Answers

Q: Why does dry spaghetti break into multiple pieces?

When dry spaghetti is snapped, the curvature of the rod causes one side to straighten out faster than the other, resulting in a cascading fracture where it breaks into multiple pieces.

Q: How did Richard Feynman's theory about vibrations causing multiple fractures get disproven?

Richard Feynman and a friend snapped spaghetti under water to dampen out vibrations, but it still broke into multiple pieces, suggesting that vibrations were not the cause.

Q: What is the significance of the curvature of the spaghetti in breaking it?

The torque applied to the spaghetti causes it to bend in a curve, and when it breaks, the side near the break is released from torque, while the rest tries to straighten out, leading to further fractures.

Q: What is cascading fracture?

Cascading fracture refers to the repeated breaking of the spaghetti as it tries to straighten out due to the imbalance in curvature between the already straightened and the still curved parts.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Dry spaghetti, when snapped, breaks into three or more pieces, unlike other rods that break into two pieces due to tension and compression.

• Richard Feynman, a renowned physicist, proposed that vibrations during snapping can cause secondary fractures, but this theory was disproven.

• High-speed camera footage reveals that the curvature of the spaghetti as it straightens out causes it to break repeatedly, a phenomenon known as cascading fracture.