water + corn starch + vibration = amazing!

I think that substance is the same as a product they used to sell at FAO Schwartz in the early 90's. It was a brightly colored slime with a solid surface if you punched or slapped it, but became very soft if you slowly pressed your hand in. A lot like quicksand. I think it was just corn starch and water.
 
That was incredible. The shapes at the end were really strange. Ok, I've seen it with my own two eyes, so now I must know why it does that. More money and research must go into to finding out why corn starch is so freaky! Write your congressman.
 
God, am I the only one that had my finger on the volume, waiting for a God Damn screaming zombie to pop out of one of those holes. :)
Sweat stuff, I wanna try it.
 
While it was indeed pretty cool, all I kept thinking was

For a bunch of geeks, these guys could sure use to learn something about compression techniques...
 
scharky said:
God, am I the only one that had my finger on the volume, waiting for a God Damn screaming zombie to pop out of one of those holes. :)
.
Click to expand...

I was right there with ya.:laugh:
 
So what do you think is happening? My guess is that the meniscus of water is affected by the particulate of corn starch which doesn't actually dissolve into the water. Then when you add vibration you get a battle between the two properties. The fact that the waves form at all is a precursor to the climbing and distorting shapes which grow as they do because the vibration is actually settling the water out of the mix and the concentration of corn starch is probably higher in the growing blobs.

I think the vibration is just screwing with the nature of cornstarch, which is to absorb moisture. It is crazy looking though... and of course I may be totally wrong.

They should have explained it at the end.

(Meniscus is the magnetic property of water [surface tension... think water spiders] to attract other water... but it can't beat gravity whereas cornstarch can beat gravity by stacking up.)
 
MattinSTL said:
So what do you think is happening? My guess is that the meniscus of water is affected by the particulate of corn starch which doesn't actually dissolve into the water. Then when you add vibration you get a battle between the two properties. The fact that the waves form at all is a precursor to the climbing and distorting shapes which grow as they do because the vibration is actually settling the water out of the mix and the concentration of corn starch is probably higher in the growing blobs.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I thought. after all this isn't rocket science. :laugh:
 
MattinSTL said:
So what do you think is happening? My guess is that the meniscus of water is affected by the particulate of corn starch which doesn't actually dissolve into the water. Then when you add vibration you get a battle between the two properties. The fact that the waves form at all is a precursor to the climbing and distorting shapes which grow as they do because the vibration is actually settling the water out of the mix and the concentration of corn starch is probably higher in the growing blobs.
Click to expand...
Have you considered that it could be MAGIC??! Sometimes the simplest explanation is right.
 
Colloidal suspension to be exact. Corn starch in water form complex polymers. The long chains interact differently depending on what you're doing with them. It behaves as a Non-Newtonian fluid. I've never seen them shaken though. I'm not sure I'll sleep tonight.

Mix some up for yourself, stir it, then try punching the surface of the mixture. (Don't hurt yourself) We use to do this as part of some of our travelling geek shows.

Former Science Centre Staff Scientist geek hat removed.
 
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