Do you want to entertain your kids during breakfast on Sunday?

Jakub Nowakowski
Maria L. Ekiel-Jezewska

Institute of Fundamental Technological Research
Polish Academy of Sciences
Pawinskiego 5B, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland


Do you want to entertain your kids during breakfast on Sunday?
Image by M.L. Ekiel-Jezewska/IPPT PAN

Take a very high jar of liquid honey and a number of small identical spherical beads, e.g. millimeter steel balls from a ball bearing. Prepare the beads before starting: mix them with a small amount of honey. Next, take into your fingers a triplet of the beads `glued' by the sticky liquid. Try to keep them as close to each other as possible and in a vertical plane, put above the open jar and then release and let them fall into honey. Guess what will you see? Hint: View the Image ‘Dancing beads, which try to oscillate periodically while falling in a viscous fluid’


Usage Information

This image may be freely reproduced with the accompanying credit: M.L. Ekiel-Jezewska/IPPT PAN

Contact Information

Maria L. Ekiel-Jezewska
Institute of Fundamental Technological Research
Polish Academy of Sciences
Pawinskiego 5B, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland
mekiel@ippt.pan.pl
+48 826 12 81 ext. 227