Scientists on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise (MIT) have launched a examine on a topic they name Oreology – how Oreo cookies twist aside. The examine’s outcomes present that the Oreo’s white cream virtually at all times winds up caught to only one facet of the cookie.
Oreo cookies are generally referred to as “sandwich cookies” as a result of they appear like a sandwich. On the skin are two arduous cookies, referred to as wafers. On the within is the candy cream filling (generally spelled “creme”). Folks eat Oreos many various methods. However one well-liked manner is to twist the 2 sides aside and eat them individually.
Crystal Owens is the lead writer of the examine. She says that as a baby, she ate Oreos by twisting them open, and was usually shocked that the cream wound up on only one facet of the cookie.
(Supply: Owens, et al., Physics of Fluids.)
As an grownup, Ms. Owens research the best way fluids behave. Fluids are supplies that may stream. This contains liquids like water or milk, but additionally thicker supplies like toothpaste or peanut butter. …Or the cream in an Oreo.
A typical take a look at for scientists learning these supplies is to see how they modify when they’re put between two surfaces and twisted. Scientists use a particular machine referred to as a rheometer, to measure fluids as they’re twisted between two flat plates. Ms. Owens realized that this was similar to an Oreo.
Ms. Owens needed to see if you happen to may use a rheometer to open an Oreo so that every facet of the opened cookie would have cream on it. “I had in my thoughts that if you happen to twist the Oreos completely, you must break up the cream completely within the center,” mentioned Ms. Owens.
(Supply: Owens, et al., Physics of Fluids.)
So she and others at MIT started to run exams. They connected Oreos to a rheometer and commenced a collection of rigorously managed twisting experiments. The group examined roughly 20 containers of Oreos of every kind. It doesn’t matter what, the cream virtually at all times wound up caught to only one facet.
The researchers assume the rationale for this most likely has to do with the best way Oreos are made. Ms. Owens notes that movies of Oreos being made present the cream being squirted onto one wafer earlier than the second wafer is positioned on prime. “That little time delay might make the cream stick higher to the primary wafer,” she says.
(Supply: Screenshot, Discovery UK, through YouTube.)
Although the experiment was enjoyable, it has a critical facet. Ms. Owens is presently learning particular fluids for 3D-printing difficult units, together with electronics. She says that the Oreo experiment will help her design higher “ink” for this sort of printing, for the reason that fluids behave in comparable methods.
The MIT group additionally needed to encourage others to discover science on this planet round them. They designed and 3D-printed a particular rheometer only for twisting open Oreos. They referred to as the system an “Oreometer”.
(Supply: Owens, et al., Physics of Fluids.)
The group has shared the designs, in order that anybody can 3D-print their very own model of the device. The Oreometer makes use of easy objects like cash and rubber bands to present house scientists management over the best way the system twists open cookies.
Did You Know…?
The MIT group additionally realized that it’s simpler to open Oreos by twisting them slowly. They are saying that twisting them rapidly is definitely more durable and makes the cookies extra prone to break.
