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Science explains perfect sandcastle
- From: AFP
- August 03, 2012
- Gallery: Incredible sand castles from a festival in England
WHAT'S the recipe for the perfect sandcastle?
A delicate balance of 99 per cent sand and one per cent water, say physicists who have given new meaning to mixing work and play.
For their contribution to science, researchers in Amsterdam and Paris spent hours building beach sand columns in their laboratories to come up with a complicated mathematical formula for a stable and long-lasting sandcastle.
Not too much water, they concluded - just enough to form small "bridges" between grains of sand, making them stick together.
The formula also sets out the desired height-to-base-diametre ratio and sand compacting force.
The findings are of interest for civil engineering and soil mechanics, fields which deal with structural stability, wrote the scientists.
"In addition, it explains the maximum height of, and provides us with a recipe to construct the perfect sandcastle."