# Military-Style, Semi-Automatic, Spaghetti Shooter **URL:** https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/military-style-semi-automatic-spaghetti-shooter/3946 **Category:** Tracking with Closeups **Tags:** pasta, spaghetti, fragmentation **Created:** [5 November 2023 14:27 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/military-style-semi-automatic-spaghetti-shooter/3946 "2023-11-05T14:27:50Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Page:** 1
### Author: ![johnwalker](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/user_avatar/scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/johnwalker/32/17415_2.png) [@johnwalker](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/johnwalker) #### Post date: [5 November 2023 14:27 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/military-style-semi-automatic-spaghetti-shooter/3946/1 "2023-11-05T14:27:50Z")
[![](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/uploads/default/original/3X/0/a/0ae0e988a8890e0395a984efe2d755d9f54c72f5.jpeg "The Secrets of Breaking Spaghetti") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwtXVW0IWEk) Why _does_ spaghetti break into multiple pieces when you bend it? Science is on it—here is a 2004 paper from _Physical Review Letters_, “[Fragmentation of rods by cascading cracks: why spaghetti do not break in half](http://www.lmm.jussieu.fr/spaghetti/audoly_neukirch_fragmentation.pdf)”. This is the abstract: > When thin brittle rods such as dry spaghetti pasta are bent beyond their limit curvature, they often break into more than two pieces, typically three or four. With the aim to understand these multiple breakings, we study the dynamics of a rod bent just below its limit curvature and suddenly released at one end. We find that the sudden relaxation of the curvature at the newly freed end leads to a burst of flexural waves, whose dynamics are described by a self-similar solution with no adjustable parameters. These flexural waves locally increase the curvature in the rod and we argue that this counter-intuitive mechanism is responsible for the fragmentation of brittle rods under bending. A simple experiment supporting the claim is presented. Here is a downloadable STL file so you can 3D print your own [Spaghetti Gun](https://www.printables.com/model/331576-spaghetti-gun/comments).