Dr. Seussian Mystery Fluid Could Have Saved Top Kill
Environment • February 2011 • Views: 712
A mixture of cornstarch and water best known for entertaining kindergartners could have plugged the spewing Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, say physicists.
Where regular drilling mud failed to stop the flow, oobleck — a complex fluid that seems to switch between liquid and solid — succeeded in simulations published Jan. 31 in Physical Review Letters.
Nice to know they couldn’t even figure out the easy solutions…