Spaghetti, cooking

Entropy is a measure of disorder in materials. Relaxed polymer chains with a random conformation (shape in space), like cooked spaghetti or a box of fishing worms, have a high degree of entropy, which is favored by Mother Nature. If the chains are stretched out (stressed), the number of conformations the chains can have in space is limited, and the entropy is reduced (see Figure B). The ratio of final length to initial length is denoted a. 

FIGURE 5.12 The long threadlike molecules of heavy hydrocarbon oils tend to get tangled together like a plate of cooked spaghetti. As a result, the molecules do not move past one another very readily and the liquid is very viscous. 

How are paper and cooked spaghetti similar to each other ... 

Both paper and cooked spaghetti consist of many overlapping and intertwined strands. 

The structure of amorphous polymers has often been compared with that of a mass of cooked spaghetti i.e. without correlation between the end-to-end vectors of segment sequences. A number of experimental data, however, point to the existence of more ordering, than implied by this picture, perhaps even in the equilibrium state. 

Terminal-tube velocity. Have you ever seen a heat-exchanger tube bundle pulled Perhaps many of the tubes were bent and twisted like partly cooked spaghetti. This distortion could not be very good for the... 

Do you add a handful of salt to the pot of water when you cook spaghetti Do you add rock salt to the ice when you make home-made ice or sprinkle calcium chloride on your sidewalks in the winter to keep them from freezing Do you have antifreeze in your car s radiator You probably do all of the above (unless you live in a warm climate ). Do you have any idea why these things are done ... 

If it takes 11 minutes to cook spaghetti in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and 14 minutes in Boulder, Colorado, how long would it take in Cuzco, Peru Discuss ways to make the spaghetti more tasty. If you prefer to make a creative spaghetti dinner for family or friends rather than answering this question, that s OK, loo you ll get full credit. (Ans. / = 21 min)... 

Macaroni, a collection of small molecules... 1 mean, noodles, is totally different than polymers (spaghetti) which are also made up of flour and water, but are much longer. The raw and cooked spaghetti aren t just easy to imagine, they re great ways to think about polymers in different states (solids and liquids, glassy states and polymer melts). 

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