If I had to guess, I'd say the treacle (a honey-like substance I'm assuming) is acting similarly to a beam under an axial force. Yes, it is a liquid, but it is a slow moving liquid. When it is poured out the molecules at the "base" don't have enough time to get out of the way like with a fast moving liquid and so they pile up in the shape they are being poured out in, which is a cylindrical beam. This beam, however, can't hold the weight of all the rest of the honey (I'm going to say honey from now on since I have no idea what treacle actually is) that is being poured on top of it so it buckles. This process happens very quickly, and the direction of buckling is essentially random, so you get those quick squiggles in the honey.

Treacle: - A syrupy byproduct of sugar refining; molasses or golden syrup.

Thats my first thought, but what about motor oil?

Does this happen or not happen with motor oil?

treacle

One entry found for treacle. Main Entry: trea·cle
Pronunciation: 'trE-k&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English triacle, from Anglo-French, from Latin theriaca, from Greek thEriakE antidote against a poisonous bite, from feminine of thEriakos of a wild animal, from thErion wild animal, diminutive of thEr wild animal -- more at FIERCE
1 : a medicinal compound formerly in wide use as a remedy against poison
2 chiefly British a : MOLASSES b : a blend of molasses, invert sugar, and corn syrup used as syrup -- called also golden syrup
3 : something (as a tone of voice) heavily sweet and cloying

dont beleive it treacle is never golden .Syrup is golden treacle is almost black,you make bonfire toffee with syrup and treacle toffee with treeeecle.Treacle toffee is a world beating delcacy made commercally by several sweetie manufacturers .ts gorgous unfortunately i cant eat it any more due to diabetes boo hoo.It maybe peculiar to the north of england I have been in Ireland 4 some years and have never seen it here.

Sheesh -- you are one sick puppy! This is exactly the kind of thing I think about. In fact, I was just staring at this phenomenon yesterday. Fortunately, there was no one around to accuse me of being in a drugged stupor.

Where it becomes really noticeable is in pouring epoxy into a mixing cup. Here, the beam effect is part of it, but a large part is also static attraction to the side of the cup. The attraction is only (relatively) strong when the flow is thin. (The scale effects take over in the same way that they do for dust particles -- which can be very dense yet still "float" in air.) If the flow is very thin, then it snaps right over to the edge of the cup. The total flow does not remain directed there, however, partly because the static charge is neutralized to some extent on contact, and partly because the slightly thicker area of flow is still aimed at the center of the cup, tending to steer the flow back to center through cohesive forces.

Compounding the issue is surface tension, which is often high enough that the stream can pile up on itself and stay separate from the pile below for a while. You could control this aspect a little by adding detergent to your treacle. Yummy.

Also, in less viscous fluids, the momentum carrying the fluid straight down is much higher than in more viscous, slower moving fluids.

Then you have brownian motion in the air, which will influence thin and slower flows more than thick.

Even absent some of these effects, other than the beam effect noted elsewhere, the flow will still oscillate, as the beam collapses one way and pushes the flow in the opposite direction, setting up a kind of pendulum effect.

I'll help you write the grant to further study this.

At last! Someone else who has been curséd with the ability to look at the world and question the most insignificant things!

Ahhhhhh at last an interesting topic to mull over!

In my mind I'd equate this type of event to a similar one with air flow through an orifice... The air flow that has gone before does effect the following air...

i.e. if the flow is less than supersonic then its common for the effects of the air already flowing through the orifice to have an effect on the air behind... Such that the if the air starts having votices forming and thus restricting the flow rate then those vortices will effect the air behind to continue this restrictive flow...

So with treacle (who said they didn't know what treacle was?.. strange person!) as its so viscous the treacle molecules impinging on the treacle surface will flow away to one side this will effect the following treacle molecules into falling away to the other side, roughly, as the molecules already fallen will have caused a slope in the fluid level, so the following molecules will run down that slope to a lower point...

This would continue giving a reasonably random appearance, or squiggly pouring... Also of course there would be many other effects at work such as the vibration of the pouring jet, air movements around the pouring treacle and so on...

John.

That was me who didn't know what treacle was; probably because I'm American. Here in America we have syrup and molasses, not treacle. And we love our syrup (preferably maple) so you can keep your treacle. In fact we love it so much we drown people in it sometimes.

Mmmmmm!.....Death by treacle..............

Quote from your link:

"A large molasses treacle tank..."

See, you Yanks do know what treacle is! But we're best at treacle mining!

That's good soil for growing flapjack plantations.

Hmm, some Brit must have edited that in.

Mmmmmmmmmm funnily enough I've just this minute removed a loaf of homemade bread from the oven and I always use a good spoonful of blackstrap molasses in it....

I suppose we're now going to swap recipes for bread making eh??

John

I dunno, don't you call that "crumpets" or something like that? Scones? Apples and Pears? It's like a foreign language you guys have over there.

That's because we are foreign ...

Just as you are to us...

Ahhh bring back the colonies!!!

From another American

When I first read the original post, I thought treacle was a misspelling of 'trickle'. Fortunately, I looked it up before reading the following posts.

I travel a lot, and commonly observe the same effect as I'm pouring shampoo from the large container into my little travel bottle.

My favorite UK / US misinterpretation is when our colleagues come over and get introduced to 'beer'. Much entertainment is perpetrated at the expense of the unwary!

The following has little or nothing to do with molasses. But I wouldn't even contemplate exchanging bread recipes across the Atlantic - the flour is too different. And, I have yet to meet an Englishman who likes truly American bread (other than sour-dough). I imagine that this is one of those tastes that are settled very early.

The source of the problem is that Americans use a large proportion of "strong" flour for their bread. The English use a mix of strong and weak flour. French bread generally uses only weak flour. Enough, I hear you squeal...

...but does anyone have a recipe for a decent gluten-free bread?

Check out this site!

http://www.freebake.co.uk/index.html

Thanks - that's a new one for me. Not seen any of their stuff about. The recipes I have tried haven't been very nice...but I make a mean gluten free crumble, and pastry & cakes!

Treacle is, of course, naturally gluten free!!

I've been reliably informed that there is no such thing as decent gluten free bread...

However I stand to be corrected!

John.

I'll let you know when I get round to making and eating some! DS do a reasonable one - but you still need to toast it...no good for sandwiches.

I am wondering... could one ferment and distill treacle to make some yummy rum??

In a word, yes!

Though to get a reasonable amount of rum, you'd need a lot of treacle, fermentation vessels, and a whopping big still. It's easier by far to let the nice people at Bacardi do it for you, because the distillation process, in particular is a bit smelly.

Anna

Not only "YES," but that's exactly where a lot of ethanol is coming from...but don't try randomly drinking anything from your neighborhood petrol station...

Why does a vine wrap around a vertical pole rather than grow straight up?

Why does the air flow in a tornado or cyclone rotate rather than move vertically?

Why does the water circle the bowl rather than fall straight through?

Why is the direction of rotation predictable and consistent?

Is it Coriellus component of acceleration,

earth's rotational influence,

Is the direction of rotation reverse in the Northern vs Southern hemisphere?

Does the direction of rotation reverse with rising vs falling flow?

Actually, 'some' vines will grow nearly straight up, but not the ones that 'wrap.' You have to have a rough surface and be growing the kind of plant that attaches in another way.

All fluids want to 'naturally' follow pressure gradients, which 'naturally' occur and are reinforced by all kinds of boundary conditions that result in irrotational vortices like the tornado or forced vortex rotation when bound to a closed system - and are STILL not fully understood, or at least not fully explained, by the physics I learned in school.

I like the wonderful Tornado-in-a-can this farmer came up with (in Kansas?) he calls the WindHexe. Awsome application of harnessing the apparently natural amplification of power when vortex motion is imposed on a compressible fluid. Explain it if you can...I can't, the silly thing just 'works,' and the patent is already being licensed privately and used by several different industries. (Vortex tapping into 'dark energy' anyone?;)

However...I wouldn't go blaming your toilet rotation on the Earth, as I would think whatever direction imposed on the jets of water at the rim would have a much greater influence than the miniscule coriolis effect that pushes large scale systems like hurricanes and weather-affecting ocean currents.

Wingtip vortices are just one obvious example of air whirling in both directions...and others are just as easy to find with water - try inducing a path around your executive washroom sink in both ways, and you'll get the drain to rotate either direction - just don't get caught experimenting with the toilet ;)

About 40 years ago I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile. I spent hours waiting until water in the bathtub was perfectly still, then carefully pulling the rubber plug on a ball-chain. There was not a predictable direction of spin. The differemce in Coriolis is just too small over bathtub distances. In weather, its a different story. I've never had a chance to see whether whirlpools in rivers or behind boats pay attention to the hemisphere...

Wow! that is fascinating, windhexe....

I haven't seen that described or even mentioned in the trade press...

I bet Dyson is fuming after missing that one!!

John.

Funny... I was thinking the two might be able to hook up somehow. You've seen the standard vacuum demo, no doubt, where they sprinkle some dust on the floor and vacuum it up. Well, now the dust could be practically anything:

"Well, sure... it cleans up simple sawdust pretty well, but how would it do with the dust from four dead chickens, an old brick, this chunk of blue cheese, and a glob of this green stuff from the back of my fridge?"

"Just one second mam; I'll have my friend here vortistically dustify that stuff, and we'll see. "

There are videos of the thing in action at a chicken farm, where they pulverize and dry all sorts of things that I wouldn't want to touch -- but the un-gloved hand keeps reaching in and collecting the stuff. I guess it nice to really be in touch with your work.

Great links!

Arrrggghh! I started out wanting to throw ideas about concerning the elasticity of treacle – or treacle like substances - and now I'm desperate to know how the Windhexe works! Thanks Mate!!!

I'm a little skeptical about this statement:

A garbage-processing plant in Pennsylvania will go online with its Windhexe. The machine can turn two tons of trash into one ton of sterile powder.

Is the powder truely sterile? The page states elsewhere theat little or no heat is generated during the process. Bacteria are known to survive entry into our atmosphere, so I could believe they could survive this (maybe not all of them!)

Apart from that it looks like a fantastic idea - untraceable disposal.

I think it's the British / USA thing again. Look at this; -

Pronunciation: 'ster-&l, chiefly British -"I(-&)l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English steryle, from Latin sterilis; akin to Gothic stairo barren animal, Sanskrit starI sterile cow
1 a : failing to bear or incapable of producing fruit or spores b : failing to produce or incapable of producing offspring <a sterile hybrid> c : incapable of germinating <sterile spores> d of a flower : neither perfect nor pistillate
2 a : unproductive of vegetation <a sterile arid region> b : free from living organisms and especially microorganisms <a sterile syringe> c : lacking in stimulating emotional or intellectual quality :

There we have it - chiefly British - Does it mean the same in America?

English Rose, it was probably written by a journalist or salesman -

Anything to get a good story / sales ...

John.

Aaaarghh! You're probably right , mate, it's just that there are some subjects to horrifying even for me to touch upon.

I guess you must be as bored as I am at work today huh Plbmak??

John.

We're just waiting for everyone to notice it's the new year and get going again.

We've started the new year with a new MD - how's that for ringing in the changes?!

I read the patent papers on this, and while the claims are broad, adding heat seems to be a central part of it all. The heat would naturally be added as a byproduct of compressing the air going into the vortex, but the patent suggests that the incoming stream might be further (deliberately) heated, too. Temperatures mentioned in the patent range from well below normal sterilization temps to well above. So while little heat is generated by the process, it can be an input to the process.

I think Dyson advertises something like: "works with 70,000 times the force of gravity." I, being naturally skeptical, thought: how on earth can they claim anything remotely close to that: the air speed would have to be supersonic... at least. (This was simply gut reaction, not based on actually doing any math.) But then, in reading about this windhexe, and following links on vortex tubes, I found that the rpm of the fluid in the vortices can be on the order on 1,000,000!!!??? I haven't had the time to read further.

But, if that is the case, then it would be not too unreasonable to assume that things like bacteria would be ripped apart into their constituent molecules, leaving the output quite sterile, indeed.

Your last couple words are giving me the creeps: are you thinking of using this as an alternative to the feet-in-concrete-at-the-bottom-of-the-river thing?

Completely untraceable - especially if large molecules, like DNA, are ripped apart....

I guess the fishes would starve, which would be a downside.

Oh my. You have a very twisty mind there, English Rose. Almost like mine.

But the fish wouldn't starve in a well-established eco-system. You just add the powdered end-product of the dyna-hexe process to the water. The small floaty organisms (algae, plankton) snatch up tasty small molecules, and the food web gets a boost all the way up and down. Including the people who catch the fish who have grown faster and fatter because smaller fish and plant matter is more abundant.

Anna

Thought I had was Nestle's Quik for fishies.

LOL

Would the vortex speed not rip apart the machine? That speed seems very excessive.

I think you're right. In order to get 1M RPM, it must be a very small vortex: something has to constrict the flow to achieve that vortex, and the heavier particles are going to be thrown outward, where they will strike and abrade that something.

The only way 2 tons of garbage can be converted to 1 ton of powder is if half the material is either volatile and evaporated or is somehow broken down to smaller molecules or atoms. Either of these possibilities would require significant energy.

Can this powder now be sent through magnetic fields and/or something akin to a mass spectrometer to separate different kinds of material?

I think... and I'm pulling this out of my ....

that, in the windhexe, there are multiple very small vortices, not one that is as large as the funnel. But even so, yes it makes you wonder.

Here's a link not to the windhexe but to vortex tubes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube

bizarre, or what?

I work with aerodynamics all the time, but I am essentially utterly and totally clueless here. I can say, while sounding like I haven't lost my mind entirely:

Given a tangential speed at some radius, R, if you simply reduce R enough, you will achieve a very high RPM rate. Studies indicate these rotational speeds can be upwards of 1,000,000 rpm.

There ya go... simple, right? While I can mouth the words, it simply boggles the mind.

40 years ago I made several vortex tubes as part of the senior project for my BS, to try to understand how they work. I believe the easiest way to understand them is in terms of friction: when air is injected tangentially, at first all the air (on average) has the same linear speed, so those molecules closer to the center have a higher RPM and slip past the molecules further out. Friction tends to make the mass rotate at one angular velocity, so the molecules near the center transfer energy to the outer molecules, heating the oustside ones and cooling the inside ones.

I believe its Exair that makes a commercial unit that is mainly intended for cooling dry machine cutting tools.

Yes but…..1 million RPM? Nearly 17,000 revs a second? How do you measure that accurately? What sort of noise does it make? Another thing, that cone looks quite big, assuming a diameter of only 200mm, the wind velocity would be about 10,000 kilometers a second. That makes Katrina look like a tropical calm. In fact it makes the winds on Jupiter look extremely second rate. I'm not sure the thing would hold together.

I think there may be one of these things in North Carolina, which is not too far from here. If I can work it into a trip, I'll have to try to see one.

I'm guessing that the vortices might counter rotate -- so that if the air is injected in the direction that would make the entire mass rotate counter clockwise, the individual vortices actually rotate clockwise, and move along the wall in somewhat the fashion of planetary gears. (I'm envisioning vortices maybe 100 mm at the top, tapering to very small at the bottom, tornado style.) Stuff would be drawn into the center of each vortex, and accelerated to the rotational velocity there, and then fling apart due to "centrifugal" force. Same principal as exploding flywheels in race cars? Perhaps the explosions are so complete that the particles that hit the funnel walls are very small.

You can look up the patent -- I think it is referenced in the Wikipedia article. From a too-quick read, it looked like there is really not much of anything inside the funnel. I'm every bit as lost as you... but seeing one would be interesting.

We should all be thankful the inventor didn't come to CR4 with his idea -- we would have come up with all sorts of reasons why the thing cannot work.

"Big whirls have bigger whirls that feed upon velocity.

Smaller whirls have smaller whirls and so-on, till VISCOSITY."

(Anon)

Oh, I am *so* stealing that.... though of course, I will call it "research".

Thanks, PWSlack for a wonderful chuckle.

Anna