May The Force (of Mayonnaise) Be With You!

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @02:24AM from the also-the-force-of-projectile-vomiting dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "A team of chemists at Rice University was working last year on two separate projects: trying to create strong fibers from carbon nanotubes, and testing emulsions of oil and water. And they discovered that a force known as 'negative first normal stress difference' was present in both solutions. The next step was to go to a grocery store and buy a more common emulsion, namely a jar of mayonnaise. And bingo! This force was also at work. They tell us more in this news release, "Bizarre Attractive Force Found in Mayonnaise." Unfortunately, they don't know what to do from their findings. Still, it's fun science. More details and references are available in this overview."

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Re:Is a mixture made by mixing by Too+Much+Noise · 2004-03-30 04:14 · Score: 4, Informative

They don't really mix, as they aren't soluble into each other. You add another substance to get an emulsion - it adsorbs on the interface and 'breaks' it, so you get droplets.
Re:Is a mixture made by mixing - What A Mixture Is by RazorX90 · 2004-03-31 07:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Technically, mixtures are just substances put together. Mixtures are normally divided into two categories. Heterogonous mixtures are of varying consistency (like a salad or oil and water). Homogenous mixtures are uniform throughout (like a solution of sugar water). So oil and water can mix, but they just aren't soluble with each other.