Breaking Spaghetti

As an individual piece of spaghetti is broken, the spaghetti fractures into several pieces that fly off..The exact reason that compressive and tension forces cause the spaghetti to break in this is currently under study. Spaghetti breaks in the same way as smokestacks break when they fall during demolition. This breaking patter is often called the “smokestack problem” The motion was captured with a 1/20,000th of a second flash, while the room lights were responsible for the blur in the photograph..

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Filename: K11-Spaghetti001.jpg
Copyright: Ted Kinsman / Science Source Inc.
Image Size: 3150x2322 / 1.5MB; Spaghetti breaking tension compression forces high speed break breaking fragments blur motion physics smokestack smokestack problem stress
Contained in galleries: High-Speed

$As an individual piece of spaghetti is broken, the spaghetti fractures into several pieces that fly off..The exact reason that compressive and tension forces cause the spaghetti to break in this is currently under study. Spaghetti breaks in the same way as smokestacks break when they fall during demolition. This breaking patter is often called the “smokestack problem” The motion was captured with a 1/20,000th of a second flash, while the room lights were responsible for the blur in the photograph..$