Oobleck is a substance known for its unusual behavior, acting like both a liquid and a solid depending on how it is handled. This popular material, often featured in science demonstrations and classroom activities, has a name rooted not in scientific discovery but in classic children’s literature.
The Literary Birth of Oobleck
The name “Oobleck” was created by author Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, in his 1949 book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. The story follows Bartholomew Cubbins, a young page boy, who must save his kingdom from a sticky, green substance falling from the sky. The bored king, tired of ordinary weather, orders his royal magicians to create something new, resulting in the disastrous storm of Oobleck.
The fictional Oobleck wreaks havoc on the land, sticking up people and animals until Bartholomew convinces the king to apologize for his wish. This Caldecott Honor-winning book provided a memorable term for an unusual substance. Educators later adopted this literary name for the cornstarch and water mixture when demonstrating complex fluid dynamics.
Understanding Non-Newtonian Fluids
The real-world substance is a non-Newtonian fluid, a class of materials that defy the predictable flow of standard liquids like water or oil. For these fluids, viscosity—a measure of a liquid’s resistance to flow—is not constant. Instead, the viscosity changes based on the stress or force applied, a phenomenon not seen in Newtonian fluids.
Oobleck specifically exhibits shear-thickening behavior. When force is applied rapidly, such as hitting it with a fist or squeezing it, the material’s viscosity instantly increases, making it feel like a solid. This reaction is caused by the sudden compression of particles within the fluid, temporarily locking them into a rigid structure. When the pressure is released, the particles relax, and the material returns to its liquid state, flowing freely like a fluid.
The Simple Science Recipe and Adoption
The material known as Oobleck is a suspension of cornstarch in water, typically mixed in a ratio of about two parts cornstarch to one part water. This composition creates the ideal concentration of solid particles suspended in the liquid medium to exhibit the shear-thickening effect. The ease of making this combination made it the perfect demonstration tool for a physical phenomenon studied by scientists for centuries.
The cornstarch and water mixture became known by the Dr. Seuss name due to the book’s popularity in educational environments. The simple, non-toxic recipe could be replicated in any classroom or home, cementing “Oobleck” as the common term for this non-Newtonian fluid. Oobleck was not “invented” in a traditional laboratory sense, but rather named by an author and later popularized by science educators demonstrating a pre-existing physical property.