Bartholomew and the oobleck

What Hacker News says

1. marssaxmanFeb 2025
   The name is a reference to the Dr. Seuss book "Bartholomew and the Oobleck", published in 1949. I remember reading it as a child, probably around the same time I mixed up a batch of the non-newtonian cornstarch mixture, though I can't remember whether the name had become associated with the substance at that time or whether we called it something else. In any case, I think it is likely that the current use of "oobleck" predates the existence of YouTube.
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2. Jun8Dec 2023
   If you'd like to make oobleck at home, here's the recipe from Peter van der Linden's book Expert C Programming, Deep C Secrets:

   "If you have enjoyed this book you might also enjoy the text Bartholomew and the Oobleck, by Dr. Seuss, ( New York, Random House, 1973). As Dr. Seuss explains, Oobleck "squiggles around in your fist like a slippery potato dumpling made of rubber." He doesn't tell you how to make it, so I will here.

   How to make Oobleck

   1. Take one cup of cornstarch. 2. Add some drops of green food coloring; Oobleck should always be green in color. 3. Slowly knead in up to half a cup of water.

   Oobleck has some extremely strange, non-Newtonian properties. It flows like water through your fingers, except when you work it like dough—then it immediately assumes a solid consistency. Except when you stop kneading it, it turns back to liquid. If you strike it quickly with something hard, you can shatter it!

   Like all Dr. Seuss books, Bartholomew and the Oobleck can be read and enjoyed on several levels. For example, One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish can be deconstructed as a searing indictment of the narrow-minded binary counting system. Software engineers can benefit from a sophisticated reading of Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

   The world would be a better place if every programmer would just play with Oobleck occasionally. The good programmers would be more rested and refreshed and the bad programmers would probably get their heads stuck to the table. But always remember, no matter how lowly or exalted a hacker you are, you are a child process of the universe, no less than the disk controller, or the stack frame mechanism (explained at such length in Chapter 6)."

   This book came out in 1994 so is dated now, but as you can see it's treasure!

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3. crimsonalucardApr 2019
   While the material discussed in the article and new, the phase of matter is not new. The term is called non-newtonian fluid. Believe it or not you can make material with these properties in your own home.

   An inexpensive, non-toxic example of a non-Newtonian fluid is a suspension of starch (e.g. cornstarch) in water, sometimes called "oobleck", "ooze", or "magic mud" (1 part of water to 1.5–2 parts of corn starch). The name "oobleck" is derived from the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

   Because of its properties, oobleck is often used in demonstrations that exhibit its unusual behavior. A person may walk on a large tub of oobleck without sinking due to its shear thickening properties, as long as the individual moves quickly enough to provide enough force with each step to cause the thickening. Also, if oobleck is placed on a large subwoofer driven at a sufficiently high volume, it will thicken and form standing waves in response to low frequency sound waves from the speaker. If a person were to punch or hit oobleck, it would thicken and act like a solid. After the blow, the oobleck will go back to its thin liquid like state.

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