Ever wanted to break a spaghetti in half? We tell you how to do it

If you have ventured into the kitchen or are an experienced chef, you know what we are talking about. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can cook spaghetti without breaking it and those who break the strings mercilessly, scattering chips all over. The scientific question here, however, is: how to break dry noodles into two parts only? The question was posed by physicist Richard Feynman in the 1950s and until recently remained unresolved.

Twist until break

Scientists who have managed to solve this longstanding problem have won the Ig Nobel Prize for this. Our heroes are the French Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch. They found that the secret to a “clean” break was simple: cheer! When twisted by about 250 to 360 degrees, the spaghetti would break into exactly two pieces, as the energy of the fracture is divided by the twist, according to MIT graduate student Vishal Patil. He, along with Ronald Heisser, a Cornell University graduate, brought the matter all the way.

Scholars broke and filmed about 350 strands of noodles to understand how this happened in the smallest detail - indeed! The pair used a camera capable of recording up to 1 million frames per second. The findings were published in a scientific paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled "Controlling Fracture Cascades through Torsion and Tempering."

But you may be wondering: why does it matter after all? In addition to winning bets with your friends, this discovery greatly helps the world of physics and engineering. More is now known about controlling breakdowns of cylindrical structures and how energy dissipates through materials, preventing unwanted actions.

Another important lesson is how to fit the entire spaghetti packet in the pan. Breaking the dough into a thousand pieces may be practical, but it does away with all the charm of the meal. Now we know the key is to cheer. If you value scientific rigor, no spaghetti was used. 5 and # 7 in research, and scientists are probably avoiding mass for a while after that.

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