Monday, September 26, 2022

The fascinating (and unexplained) phenomenon of chain fountains

I seem to have missed it until my daughter pointed it out to me, but apparently chain fountains are "all over the Internet".

A chain fountain is a strange scientific phenomenon similar to the way in which certain polymers and even plastic beads will self-siphon out of a beaker, once given a start. But Steve Mould realized that, when metal beads are used instead of plastic, the chain actually rises above the pot before falling back down, in a kind of counter-intuitive anti-gravitational event.

In this longer video, as well as trying to break the world record for the highest recorded chain fountain, Mould (whose YouTube channel specializes in all sorts of of weird and inexplicable physical effects) attempts to give a layman's explanation of it without getting too bogged down in the physics and the math (roughly gravitational potential energy being converted into kinetic energy), but it seems clear that there are still some unknown forces acting on the chain, which has become known as the "Mould effect", so even the brightest minds have been unable to fully explain it.

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