Viscoelastic Liquid = Silly Putty

That's right - Silly Putty is a liquid. Who knew - maybe my parents, I'm not sure. Probably some sort of generational knowledge that did not get passed down. Someone gave me some Silly Putty yesterday and I've been playing with it at my desk (I'm actually not that bored at work). I noticed that if I rolled it in a ball and set it on my desk, after about an hour it would flatten out like a pancake.

So then, I rolled it up in a ball and put it on the edge of my desk...see Exhibit A

I came back 5 hours later and it looked like this, see Exhibit B:

WOW! That looks like a viscoelastic liquid if I've ever seen one! The material was discovered in 1943 when a GE engineer accidentally dropped boric acid into silicone oil (the very reason I have someone at Texaco change my oil). An enterprising individual bought the rights to the product and named it Silly Putty, he put it in an Easter Egg because Easter was approaching - and the rest is history!

When rolled into a ball, it bounces really well - perhaps it's best known for kids pressing it down over their favorite comic-strip and the art transfers onto the putty. Except for now in modern times, more and more printers are using soy-based ink as opposed to petroleum inks and they don't transfer as well anymore. Hmm. Also, it dissolves in alcohol. Hmm.

That's all I've got, except for this very interesting picture of some putty slowing "flowing through a hole on a glass table."

That's what I learned today (for extra credit, you can read the scientific details below)!

Here is a scientific explanation of Silly Putty:

"It acts primarily as a viscous liquid, though it can have properties of an elastic solid, too. Silly Putty is primarily polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). There are covalent bonds within the polymer, but hydrogen bonds between the molecules. The hydrogen bonds can be readily broken. When small amounts of stress are slowly applied to the putty, only a few of the bonds are broken. Under these condition, the putty flows. When more stress is applied quickly, many bonds are broken, causing the putty to tear.