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WHAT MIT’S NEW ‘OREOMETER’ REVEALED ABOUT TWISTING OREOS

It’s basically impossible twist an Oreo evenly in half.

By Philip Kiefer | Published Apr 19, 2022 5:00 PM

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No matter how carefully you peel back the two chocolate wafers of an Oreo, the
creme filling will always stick to one side. It’s not possible to split the
creme down the middle.  That’s according to new fluid dynamics research
published in the journal Physics of Fluid.

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While the finding might not be a total shock to snack aficionados, it sheds
light on the next generation of 3D printed manufacturing. Crystal Owens, the
lead author on the study, and a PhD student in fluid dynamics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, usually focuses on using ink-containing
carbon nanotubes to 3D print electronics, not the texture of food. Oreos are a
way of putting those concepts in the hands of the general public.



But the central measurements are similar. Substances that can be 3D printed must
be malleable enough to squeeze from tubes yet stiff enough to stay in place once
printed. For carbon nanotubes, which could be used in electronics manufacturing,
the goal is “get [the printed structure] as strong as it can be most of the
time,” Owens says.



The study of how fluids and plastics move under stress is called rheology, a
niche that the average person has no idea exists, says Owens. But Oreos are a
perfect in-hand demonstration: “If I say, it’s like an Oreo—I put fluid between
plates and I rotate them, and that helps me characterize the viscosity [of
materials] we use for 3D printing—suddenly people understand what I’m saying.”

[Related: The future might be filled with squishy robots printed to order]



Testing the properties of printable nanotubes is exactly like measuring the
twist of an Oreo. The researchers begin with a tool called a rheometer, a pair
of plates that can sandwich a fluid together, and spin it to measure the
liquid’s strength. In the case of the Oreo, the researchers wanted to see what
would happen to the inner “creme” if they twisted the outer chocolate “wafers”
(according to their technical description of an Oreo cookie). The key
measurement was “yield stress,” or the amount of force it took to split wafer
from creme.



The study authors also tested the cookies with a DIY “Oreometer”—a clamping
device that uses rubber bands and coins to twist the wafers apart, developed by
coauthor Max Fan, an undergraduate at MIT. “We were talking a lot about how we
give people an intuitive sense of what a yield stress is,” says Owens. “The best
thing we came up with is, let other people do the same sort of tests.”



(If you’d like to build your own Oreometer, the study authors published
instructions online.)



Going in, Owens says she and her colleagues expected to be able to split the
filling in Oreos down the middle under some experimental conditions. With the
molten plastic used to make things like deck chairs, “if you rotate too fast,
you will get a seam right around the equator, and the fluid will shear right
along that band,” says Owens. “It’s a very classic phenomenon, so we actually
spent some time trying to make this happen with the Oreos.”



But no matter how fast they twisted the wafer, the creme always stuck to one
side. “It turns out there’s not really a trick to it,” Owens says. “Everything
you try to do will get mostly a clean break. It’s a bit disappointing that
there’s not some secret twist.” She suspects that heating up the creme could
make a middle split possible. Cookies with extra creme (“Double Stuf”) or
special flavorings didn’t change results.

Still, the faster the scientists spun the wafer, the harder it was to break the
creme. “That’s actually the proof that creme is a liquid,” says Owens. Pure
solids always require the same force to break no matter how quickly they’re
twisted.



[Related: Scientists create a small, allegedly delicious piece of yeast-free
pizza dough]



In the world of food textures, Oreo creme sits in the mushy category, along with
mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. “Actually a lot of Thanksgiving
foods are [fluids],” Owens says. “Not chicken—I think that’s just a solid.”

When asked if canned cranberry sauce was a fluid or solid, Owens pauses.
“Depending on who you ask, it could be a soft solid or a complex fluid,” she
says. But there’s another definition of a fluid, she says. “If we can measure it
in our rheometer then it’s considered a fluid.” In fact, she says, the
properties of an Oreo’s filling suggests that it could be 3D printed.

Philip Kiefer

Philip Kiefer is a staff writer at Popular Science. He started as a freelancer
for the science desk in 2021, and joined the team fully later that year. He’s
covered the evolution of COVID variants, carrion-eating honeybees, and
prehistoric algal blooms.



carbon nanotubes
cookies
fluid dynamics
food
physics

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