1word1day | dilatant

dilatant; adj. A dilatant substance is one whose viscosity increases with rate of shear (force that causes two contiguous parts to slide relative to each other).

Newtonian fluids are fluids that continue to flow regardless of forces acting on them. Water is a Newtonian fluid. Non-Newtonian fluids act counter to what we might expect.

Etymology: dilatant is related to "dilate" (Latin); it refers to an increase in volume when the substance changes shape.

Dilatants are also called shear thickening materials. Shear thinning materials (materials whose viscosity decrease with rate of shear) include pseudoplastics and thixotropics.

Dilatants have been used in automobile traction control systems,and are being researched for use in body armor. That sounds a bit like the personal shields in Dune, which could only be breached by slow motions!

But this is supposed to be a food-themed post....

Ketchup is a pseudoplastic: it will stick inside the bottle, but when sufficiently shaken it will suddenly begin to flow freely. Yet once it's out of the bottle and no longer being shaken, it will stay in place (more or less) on your cheeseburger. It's science!

Oobleck is a dilatant. To make oobleck, mix 1 part water with roughly 2 parts cornstarch. The substance reacts much like a solid surface when struck, but like a liquid when touched. There are numerous online videos demonstrating the bizarre properties of oobleck, and it's a fun kitchen experiment. If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you might have seen oobleck on a speaker cone being turned into dancing blobs and spikes by the sound waves.

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Okay, now I feel like much less of a dork for having posted all excited in my journal when that article came out in Science recently about a researcher who had actually seen/recorded "hydro-clustering" in action, explaining shear thickening.

Oobleck is a name from what, fiction, a tv show? Where did that come from originally?

I know that the first place I heard the term "oobleck" was from my MIT friends who were members of the Tau Epsilon Phi (TEP) fraternity. They used to have a wading pool full of it for their Rush week (I heard it first like 15 years ago). I suspect that's the origin.

Dr. Seuss was a brother at Tau Epsilon Phi, you know. It's where he got the idea for the sneeches.

Apparently it's from the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

THANK YOU. That's it. For nonsense words that become common usage, look to Dr Seuss and Lewis Carroll.

dilatant

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