What 250 lbs of Silly Putty looks like
Clay Bavor, a product manager at Google, bought an eighth of a ton of Silly Putty and put it into one huge pile on his desk. After taking the photo above, he attempted to break the Silly Putty into chunks to distribute it to his friends. It wasn't as easy as he had hoped.Link (via Neatorama)The problem was that once together, Silly Putty doesn't like to come apart, and none of us had any idea of how to deal with this effect. We tried everything: very strong people (didn't work), scissors (stabbing worked, slicing didn't), 28-gauge steel wire (broke), 22-gauge steel wire (broke), 16-gauge steel wire (too thick), and twisting and breaking (worked well for "smaller" pieces -- under five pounds, that is.)
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Mark Frauenfelder
My latest book, Made by Hand, now in paperback. Follow me on Twitter.
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