Non-Newtonian fluids, at their very core, are weird. When most people think of a liquid, they think of something like water: something that flows, drips and splashes like normal fluids. That's what the vast majority of people would think of when hearing the word 'liquid,' but it's not the only possibility. Non-Newtonian fluids are very much like regular liquids, but their increased viscosity means that a liquid can end up feeling very solid. Remember those videos of people running across 'water' from a few years ago? All of those videos employed non-Newtonian fluids.
At this point, it feels like everyone has seen what a non-Newtonian oobleck can do. It was a huge trend a while ago, but running across an oobleck is no where near as cool as setting one down on a speaker...but even that's been done before. Plenty of people have seen an oobleck bounce around on a speaker system, that's true - but they probably haven't seen it in slow motion. Here it is, courtesy of The Slo-Mo Guys:
(The magic starts at about the 2:20 mark)
Non-Newtonians are bizarre on their own, but watching one basically hover above a speaker system and then fall back into a puddle is like something out of science fiction. It looked plenty strange at regular speed, but when it's slowed down to 1600 frames-per-second, it looks like some sort of alien.
What makes the whole thing better is that ooblecks are easy to make. All you need is corn starch and water: one cup of water mixed with 1.5 cups of corn starch (and some food coloring for style) will result in a relatively soft oobleck. If you want something more solid, just add more corn starch and the oobleck will stiffen up. Of course, 2.5 cups of non-Newtonian fluid isn't going to be enough to run across, but it should be more than enough to possibly ruin a speaker system.
If your interests lie in slow-motion as opposed to non-Newtonians, check out The Slow-Mo Guys. It's about as self-explanatory as it gets: two guys experiment with all manner of subjects in front of a high-speed camera.
It really is amazing how bizarre life becomes once everything is slowed down.
Photo: Rooster Teeth
