Did you ever have a bowl of Cheerios and notice that when there are only a few Cheerios left floating on top of the milk, they tend to cluster together in little bunches \u2014 usually around the edge of the bowl? Did you ever wonder why they do that? Well, I\u2019ll tell you, I\u2019ve wondered about that for many years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019ve read this blog over the years, you know there are a lot of things that I wonder about. Sometimes I wonder about something for some period of time and finally I just don\u2019t wonder about it anymore. Or, sometimes I solve the puzzlement to my satisfaction and then I stop wondering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turns out that I wasn\u2019t the only one wondering about that mysterious behavior of Cheerios. Finally, the scientific community took action and performed a scientific study to explain the behavior. Thanks to Brown University for looking into this phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening \u2014 it has to do with surface tension, the tendency of molecules on the surface of a liquid to stick together, forming a thin film across the surface \u2014 and \u2014 gravity. Small objects like Cheerios aren\u2019t heavy enough to break the surface tension of milk, so they float. Their weight, however, does create a small dent in the surface film. When one Cheerio dent gets close enough to another, they fall into each other, merging their dents and eventually forming clusters on the milk\u2019s surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That certainly puts my mind at ease. The study went on to develop a method to measure the forces that cause small object to cluster together on the surface of a liquid. I really don\u2019t care about the forces involved \u2014 I just needed to know why they congregated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study did, however, name the phenomenon the \u201cCheerio effect.\u201d I do like the name \u2014 now I can truly enjoy my next bowl of Cheerios\u2026.
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Did you ever have a bowl of Cheerios and notice that when there are only a few Cheerios left floating on top of the milk, they tend to cluster together in little bunches \u2014 usually around the edge of the … Continue reading