Here’s how to bend spaghetti to your will
To avoid having the pasta shatter, give it a twist before snapping it in half
Here’s good news for anyone who’s had to sweep up pasta shards after snapping dry spaghetti and thought, “there’s got to be a better way.”
There is.
Simply bending a stick of spaghetti in half typically shatters it into three or more fragments. That’s because when the stick breaks, vibrations wrack the remaining halves, causing smaller pieces to splinter off (SN: 11/12/05, p. 315). To avoid this problem, give the spaghetti stick a twist before bending it, researchers report online August 13 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.