Steve Spangler, the guy who popularized the Mentos and Soda geyser, decided to blow some minds and show that one can indeed separate colors under the right conditions after they’ve been mixed, according to laminar flow.
The experiment is quite simple: Spangler adds separate blobs of red, green and blue colored corn syrup to a jar of clear corn syrup (chosen for its viscosity), turns a crank on the jar which mixes the blobs of coloring, then turns the crack bank and the colors miraculously separate.
Assuming I’m comprehending correctly, the colors can separate because of laminar flow, which is when different portions of liquid flow parallel to one another when “inside” the same overall flow, which helps keeps the individual fluids from mixing with one another.
Spangler gives credit for the experiment to Kevin Cahill of the University of New Mexico, the first person Spangler saw perform said experiment.
(Steve Spangler Science via Make)
