1

When you mix cooked noodles or other "prevailing 1D pasta" like spaghetti with other ingredients like olives, pieces of meat (not minced) etc. you will probably experience the fact, that the mixture is not "homogenous" - larger pieces tend to fall out of the upcoming meal and usually they are gathered on the bottom or at the side of a pan.

After doing careful and regular experimental observations, my preliminary conclusions are, that this phenomenon is not present when the pieces are of equal or less diameter than the pasta and are "prevailing 1D" as well (could be done e.g. with julliened carrot).

  • Could that be generalised and theoretically proven somehow?
  • Could there be some statistical-mechanics formulation of this kind of stickness as a many particle system?
Victor Pira
  • 2,814
  • 2
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about food science/culinary arts and not physics. – Kyle Kanos Nov 23 '15 at 11:25
  • 3
    I beg to differ on that. Of course, it's inspired by a practical cooking situation but "the why" is physics. I am not looking for an answer like "Add more cheese." – Victor Pira Nov 23 '15 at 11:42
  • 1
    So basically "Add any physics terms and suddenly any question is now on topic" is your response? No, this question isn't about physics just because you threw in something about many-body physics, it's about hypothesizing why food sticks which is studied by food scientists, not physicists. – Kyle Kanos Nov 23 '15 at 11:47
  • 5
    I am not sure that off topic is the real problem. Chemists and physicists also study stickiness and behavior of mixtures. It is more that we are asked to turn a vague conjecture into physics. – mmesser314 Nov 23 '15 at 12:29
  • 2
    There are two very relevant questions on this site that already have good answers: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/141569/why-do-the-big-nuts-always-remain-at-top-the-brazil-nut-effect, http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/133174/26969 – Floris Nov 23 '15 at 14:10
  • 3
    I believe this is very much on topic, and there is a lot of interesting statistical physics here. But the question has been asked and answered before - so I am proposing to close as a duplicat. – Floris Nov 23 '15 at 14:12
  • Thanks! I was not quick enough to mark it as duplicate. If the question would be reopened, I'll mark it as such. – Victor Pira Nov 23 '15 at 14:36

0 Answers0