Mix cornstarch and water into homemade oobleck, then adjust its texture and explore how it responds to movement.

Cornstarch can thicken soup or serve as a base for a DIY shampoo, but there's more to the humble pantry staple. Given the right conditions, it seems to defy the laws of physics. Mixing cornstarch with ...

Making oobleck is a great science and sensory project combined into one. After combining cornstarch and water, dip your hands into this non-Newtonian fluid, fluid that acts like a solid and a liquid ...

When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes give my younger brothers and me a large tub of oobleck, telling us to go play outside and make a mess. Oobleck is a milky-white, shiny substance known as a ...

Mixing corn starch and water in appropriate amounts produces a slurry that is liquid when stirred slowly but hardens when you punch it—a substance colorfully dubbed “oobleck.” (The name derives from a ...

Oobleck has long been my favorite example of a non-Newtonian fluid, and I’m not alone. It’s a hugely popular “kitchen science” experiment because it’s simple and easy to make. Mix one part water to ...

If your kids ever brought home some Oobleck from school, you had a glimpse of a long-standing scientific controversy. Next time, you can just have fun with it, knowing that the argument is over.

This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by ...

It's a phenomenon many preschoolers know well: When you mix cornstarch and water, weird things happen. Swish it gently in a bowl, and the mixture sloshes around like a liquid. Squeeze it, and it ...

An aluminum rod just before (left) and just after (right) it strikes the surface of a cornflour and water suspension. Rather than penetrating, the rod causes the suspension below it to solidify for an ...

It takes guts to attempt running across the surface of a liquid. Even more so if a sneaky physicist is nearby. Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid, meaning that its viscosity changes depending upon the ...