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Here's something if you & your kids are bored!

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thermidorthelobster:
Mix about 150g of cornflour with around 125ml water in a largish bowl... stir it and...

This is called a dilatant liquid, and it does some really weird stuff. It's a liquid, until you apply any pressure to it, and then it becomes a solid very quickly!

Try picking some out of the bowl and rolling it in your hands. Now stop rolling it... it's bizarre!

You can do lots of fairly freaky things with this. Take a blob of it outside, put it on a concrete floor, and hit it with a hammer...

Who would have thought you could have so much fun with cornflour?

muddyweb:
The joys of Thixatropics  :-)

thermidorthelobster:
Or rheopectics, in this case :wink:

Thixotropics are the other way round iirc :P

muddyweb:
How sad is this ?

It's gone 2am on New Year's day, and we're trading geek-words :-)

thermidorthelobster:
I know...  and the "Happy New Year" thread is up to 3 pages already!

So far this year I've also tried isolating my own DNA using salty water, washing up liquid and gin, but that one didn't work very well :(

All courtesy of a little booklet called "100 Things to Do Before You Die" which came free with New Scientist :)

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