Why we get eating spaghetti

The physics of little things is an expression that surely brings us atoms and subatomic particles, or takes us to the field of quantum physics. But we could also for refer to everyday lifewhich is also the object of the interest of this science. And in this everyday, we could say that spaghetti dishes score very high.

A few weeks ago, the British chain BBC I reviewed Of the multiple times that this pasta dish had been the protagonist in some scientific research. From how to create ultrafine spaghetti to its viscoelastic capacity, through the problem of Feynman spaghetti, and without forgetting the science of their sauces. The list is not short.

But among all these brave analyzes, perhaps the most daily is the one who tried to answer the question: why is it so difficult to eat spaghetti without staining?

A little over 75 years ago, George F. Carrier set out to answer this question. Brown University mathematician enunciated the details of his solution through a Article published in 1949 In the magazine The American Mathematical Monthly Under the title “The problem of spaghetti”(The Spaghetti Problem).

“There are two problems concerning with the lateral vibrations of the strings that should be of considerable popular and academic interest: (the first is) the problem of describing the motion of a rope in finite length that is vertically ocekerly through a hole (this is obviously related to the title (of the academic article)),” Carrier introduced.

The second of the problems refers to a problem related to the oscillation of the guitar strings.

In its section dedicated to the “problem of spaghetti”, Carrier formalized through equations the movement of these strings, a movement that we can apply to The lashes given by the spaghetti When they are absorbed, whipping that in turn are capable of spreading the sauce that bathes this pasta leaving everything lost around. Including, of course, the diner (and possibly its companions).

The other food science

As little ones, they probably teach us not to play with food, but it is not uncommon for scientists of very varied disciplines to experience it and do so in a way that might seem banal. Or even hilarious. From Convert an apple In the unexpected symbol of gravity until a certain obsession In trying things of the strangest, the history of science is full of examples that illustrate this obsession with food.

For example, we have the collaborative effort that was unleashed when a microbiologist found that this soup that had forgotten in the fridge had become blue. The curiosity to know which organism had dyed that broth He unleashed a soap opera of several weeks in which different laboratories in different geographical areas collaborated to answer the question.

An accurate formula for find experiments Rocambolescos is attending to the palmarés of the Awards Nobel IGthat every year they reward absurd and funny science, which “first makes people laugh, and then make them think”, according to the promoters themselves, the magazine Annals of improbable researcch.

We found one of these examples at the 2004 ceremony, in which the Public Health Award was taken an analysis of the “Five second rule”That is, a study on whether the time elapsed between the fall of a food to the ground and the moment in which we collect it affects its health.

Ten years later, the award would be for an IRTA-Food Safety Program team, which study If some gastric bacteria isolated from baby feces could serve as a crop to obtain probiotics. One of the most recent examples is found in 2023, with the Award to A study dedicated to the viability of enhance the taste of food through slight electric shocks.

Because the science that answers the big doubts also serves to answer the small questions.

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Image | Myriams-Fotos