A Grand Noodle Riddle, Cracked: Here's How To Snap Spaghetti Into Just 2 Pieces
"Perhaps you've heard that classic anecdote about Richard Feynman, the Nobel-
winning theoretical physicist, who famously spent hours with a buddy puzzling over why uncooked spaghetti always breaks into more than two pieces."
"Perhaps you're one of those incorrigible monsters who break their pasta before boiling it (how dare you) and wonder why you end up having to vacuum afterward."
"Or perhaps you have no idea what we're talking about. In which case, just watch this slow-motion video of spaghetti snapping, set to some truly moving piano music."
"Whatever the case may be, you've probably noticed there's a mystery here: Why the hell doesn't spaghetti just snap in half — and is there anything in this wide world that can make it actually do so?"
"As it turns out, a pair of scientists figured out the answer to that first question more than a decade ago: Essentially, the dry noodle bends before it breaks, so that when it breaks, it does so with more power, sending vibrations racing back through the remaining pieces, bending and breaking them in turn. The discovery won them an Ig Nobel for silly or surprising research — but it did not, in fact, answer how anyone can overcome this effect and make a single clean break."