Isn't that so cool?! My favorite MeFi post I ever made included this.

I remember this from MeFi - very very cool.

Cool.
See also

seanyboy, that is SO NEAT-O!

Cornstarch is a strange thing. It can seem to be a liquid and a solid at the same time. Mix up some cornstarch with water in a bowl, just enough so that all the cornstarch is mixed in. Cup your hand and pour some of the mixture into your palm, and you'll see that it's a liquid. If you rub it quickly beween your hands like you're making balls from cookie dough it feels solid, to the point that if you throw it at the counter, it'll land with a thump and not splatter everywhere. You can also cause it to snap by pulling it apart quickly like Silly Putty. When you stop moving it around, it goes liquid again. Fun with food!

Omg!!! cornstarch custard!!! Yum!

Braniac did a show where they examined the weird liquid/solid properties of custard by filling a swimming pool with custard and walking across it. Generally, I think Braniac is pretty stupid, but I liked that.

Was it $240 worth of custard?

It can seem to be a liquid and a solid at the same time.

Yep. It's a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that its viscosity will change with the applied strain rate. Fascinating.

OMG Miles, That was just so wrong.
I ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY LOVED IT!!!!

woah: multi-friends of mine here at UT work for harry swinney's group. he is one of the, if not THE big dog of non-linear dynamics. last summer his group had a weekly brown bag lunch where they watched lots of old footage of this kind...


he's about three feet tall. got an american for peace sticker on his bumper, which: he bikes everywhere, so i've seen his car once. seems like a really good guy; a really soft spoken louisiana fella.

also: speck, what's yr. background, science-wise?

Never studied it formally, sam, aside from basic classes in college. But: my dad's a mechanical engineer, my mom has some pretty hard-core botanic hobbies, and my best friend is a quantum game theorist. I guess it rubs off a little.