After Jello hits the floor
Many of you may have noticed that I’ve been derelict in posting about jello lately.
What can I say? I’ve been busy. It slipped my mind. There’s nothing new in the jello world.
Flimsy excuses, I know.
But I will now attempt to remedy that failing of mine with the following video of jello’s surprisingly bouncy qualities:
Why am I showing this now? Well, this morning I had a puzzling jello experience, and I thought the video might be able to shed light on the mystery. I was eating some jello—something I rarely do, by the way—and a large clump of it fell off my spoon and onto the floor, only to roll towards the bottom of the stove and under it. But when I looked for it there, it was nowhere to be found.
Disappeared. Not even an oozing purple stain to show where it had once been. I ask the scientists among you to please help explain this perplexing phenomenon, if you can.
Why be so defensive about your Jello habit? It is an under appreciated and truly American food.
DirtyJobsGuy:
Defensive? Me?
What jello habit???
File under: “Where does the light go when it goes out?”
and
“Are you foolish enough to believe that the light in the refrigerator really does go out when you close the door?”
I would also note that you need to lay in stocks of “Bouncing Jello.” You’re probably using that sugarless zero calories kind that has no bounce to it They take it out with the sugar.
“”I ask the scientists among you to please help explain this perplexing phenomenon, if you can.””
Just think of the stove as the Bermuda Triangle of your kitchen. Even a swedish meatball couldn’t escape its grasp.
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The answer is in a video you posted. Jello behaves differently under long-time stress and under short-time stress. In the former case its internal structure have enough time to accomodate deformation, so it behaves like liquid, which change form instantly and irreversibly under slightest stress. In the later case deformation is too short-lived, internal structure does not change irreversibly, and after stress stops, it recovers its old form, that is, behaves like a piece of rubber. Your jello bounced like a rubber and can be found anywhere at a distance compared with the height from which it was dropped.
That’s what I was going to say Sergey.
I had a bowl of jello this week. Lime. It was good. I can’t comment on how it bounces or rolls since any that was dropped was quickly eaten by my small puppy. He will wait patiently for any morsels of food to drop.
More scientific explanation: deformable bodies have 3 modes of reaction to stress: elasticity (rubber), plasticity (butter) and viscosity (greese). But some materials combine two or three of these properties. Steel is elastic before it deformed too strong, and after this treshhold it shows plasticity. There are visco-elastic bodies, and even more complex materials whose behavior depends not only on extent of deformation, but also on velocity and duration of deformation. Jello is the most complex of all: it is sumultaneously elastic, viscous, plastic and thixotropic, that is, it changes its properties during deformation and the result depends on the whole history of deformation: its velocity, extent, duration in every moment of this defornation. In other words, it is a material with a memory. No mathematical theory exists for description of such non-Newtonian “liquids”, and observable behavior often is paradoxical and surprising.
That is why I am so sceptical about a lot of modish pseudo-sciencies: social sciencies, climate science, psychology, economics, evolution theory. If it is impossible to accurately predict the behavior of a piece of jello under stress, how one can hope to predict the behavior of markets, societies, oceans and living forms under stress? All these are systems with memory, they change their properties constantly in many invisible ways, and so they historical. But history is not a predictive science, never was and never will be.
Lots of the “sciencies” (some I mentioned, but the list is almost infinite) simply try to nail jello to a wall. Futile attempts!
So, if I can’t find the jello, I might not find Utopia?
Ten bucks says that you find a missing sock wherever you find your runaway jello.
A Russian spam bot.
Yes, indeed Scott! I have more unmatched black socks than total black socks I can ever remember purchasing. I finally have taken to buying the most unique one’s possible. One’s with dots, stripes . . .
Ssergey:
simply try to nail jello to a wall. Futile attempts!
Classic.
Pity the poor woman in a parallel universe trying to figure out how “that” got under there.
That was beautiful. It’s like watching a splash morph into a fish and then into the Karate Kid and then into Batman’s cape and then re-form into a curtain blowing out of an open window on Hell House.
I think your missing Jello either turned back into hooves and ran away or Jello transforms into dust rabbits when the light goes out. You choose.
Good film–better than most 1950s blob movies.
Sergey, in response to your wonderfully scientific explanations, I say “Oh.”
And “thanks.” It sounds good!
And neo — yes, I’ve missed Jello! Ive wonder many a time what that artist who did that magical scenic sculpture of San Francisco skyline (I think that’s what it was) is up to? Her work was absolutely magical. (I wonder how much jello she spilled while creating?)
Oooooh! Look what I found! (Her name is Liz Hickok and this collection of photos of her work is really a treat!)
http://www.lizhickok.com/portfolio_jello.html
Here’s some more info about Ms. Hickok and her portfolio, photos of installations, and some work she’s done focusing on the molds she makes themselves which are so different from the astonishing rainbow hues she’s achieved in Jell-o as they are monochromatic. They are meant to be compared to the colorful work.
I wonder how old she was when she decided that Jell-o was her ideal artistic medium….
Oops! Forgot to put in the web address:
http://www.lizhickok.com/index.html
I’ll have what LAG’s having.
The question where the jello went has been worrying me. Could it have bounced into the underpinnings of the stove and gotten caught or stuck up there?
If not, it’s wherever the socks go. And since someone mentioned black socks, here are some lyrics from a round for you:
Black socks!
They never get dirty,
The longer you wear them,
the stronger they get.
Sometimes
I think I should wash them
But something inside me
Keeps saying, “Not yet!
Not yet, not yet, not yet . . . “
It is up under your stove, hardening as I type. 🙂
Mrs Whatsit: great poem.
But my black socks don’t get stronger, they get a hole in the big toe area.
Neo,
Jack posted the correct explanation. I have experienced this phenomenon many times in my life, as we all have. I drop a small object and it immediately goes into another dimension, never to be seen again.
This site never disappoints. Great writing. Always wondering what I’ll find to read (or watch). And, to whoever posted the link to the artist who works w/jello as her medium: Thanks. Who knew?
There’s a rat living under your stove and rats LOVE purple jello!!
Jello has long been the subject of scientific enquiry, such as this paper on Ray-Tracing Hello Brand Gelatin.