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Friday, August 22, 2008

Breakfast thought

I was assembling a bowl of Rice Krispies this morning and had a thought.

The ceral makes a 'snap, crackel, pop' when you add milk. Because you can hear it, there was a release of energy. Can we use this as an energy transport medium? (a similar mechanism)?

from Kellog:

When Kellogg's* Rice Krispies are toasted the cooked and dried rice "berries" expand their size (puff) to many times their normal size. Since the weight of the rice berry and its material mass remains nearly the same, the rice material is stretched to form very thin walls of the Rice Krispies structure. This is much like a very thin glass crystal. When subjected to a change in heat, a severe "stress" is set up and the thin wall fractures - creating a Snap, Crackle and Pop! This happens in the cereal bowl when cold milk (i.e. heat stress) is poured in the Rice Krispies and presto SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! The sounds are made by the uneven absorption of milk by the cereal bubbles.


and Live Science's Explaination:
Shattered glass
A Rice Krispie behaves like a piece of glass. If you hit it hard, it’ll break into a puzzle of a million pieces that, if you had the patience, you could put back together again.
The high temperature at which the cereal’s cooked creates extremely strong bonds that hold the rice’s starch molecules together. The strong bonds make the rice act like glass.
During the cooking process, each piece of rice expands and a network of air-filled caves and tunnels form inside.
Under pressure
When you pour milk into your breakfast bowl, the cereal absorbs the milk. As milk flows into the crispy kernel, the liquid puts pressure on the air inside and pushes it around.
The air shoves against each pocket’s walls until they shatter, forcing out a snap, or a crackle, or, as you, know, sometimes a pop.
You can also see tiny air bubbles escaping to the surface.


Pre-stressed crystals?
So, how can we extract the release of energy? Seems it takes a lot to set it up though, high heat and etc.

1 comment:

yajeev said...

how long before we get krispie-powered cars?