# The spaghetti mystery **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408 "2006-04-05T14:13:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/1 "2006-04-05T14:13:19Z")
Saw this on the the Today show this morning. Hold a piece of uncooked spaghetti at each end with your fingers. Try to break spaghetti into just two pieces (no little shards) …you will fail. Why? Science dude on show said he didn’t know…Any guesses? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/2 "2006-04-05T14:18:20Z")
I have heard of certain types of glass which are made so that if they break they will break into lots of small pieces instead of the long, pointy things daggers. Possibly whatever is different about the structure of this safety glass is the same as pasta naturally is. WAG ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/3 "2006-04-05T14:22:57Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > Saw this on the the Today show this morning. > > Hold a piece of uncooked spaghetti at each end with your fingers. Try to break spaghetti into just two pieces (no little shards) …you will fail. > > Why? > > Science dude on show said he didn’t know…Any guesses? First… I’d be surprised if/that it’s impossiblle. (Don’t have a piece of spaghetti here to try it on.) If it’s true, WAG it would have something to do with being a long, very thin object of a particular level of brittleness. Might be that there’s numerous ‘weak points’ in each piece… bending the piece decreases the strength of all of these simultaneously. Finally one will break off entirely, but then the two pieces will suddenly snap back to shape, and the force of this snapback might send shards flying loose. Incidentally, what would a piece of FRESH uncooked spaghetti (not dry) react like with this test? I imagine that you couldn’t break it in two by bending, because it’d be much bendier than dry pasta. Could you pull it in two?? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/4 "2006-04-05T14:24:52Z")
This deals with rigid rods and fractures; they get to spaghetti about halfway down: [Science News](http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051112/bob10.asp) ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/5 "2006-04-05T14:26:53Z")
OK, this is annoying. I popped out into the kitchen to prove **beagledave** wrong. Five pieces of spaghetti later, I concede. I even tried it with the smaller pieces of the pieces I’d already broken. No luck. Now someone has to provide the correct answer. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/6 "2006-04-05T14:27:53Z")
FWIW… the author of this book did the spaghetti demo. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/7 "2006-04-05T20:16:14Z")
**brossa** , great link! That is so cool! ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-spaghetti-mystery/351408/8 "2006-04-05T21:35:00Z")
> [@brossa](#): > > This deals with rigid rods and fractures; _\<\< insert gratuitous, and painful, [sexual reference](http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3415.htm) here \>\>_ 😃