Plot Twist: Science Has Figured Out If You Can Split an Oreo Cookie Perfectly

The Oreo cookie, which was introduced successful 1912, has agelong been a root of intrigue, from the meaning of its amazingly elaborate wafer design to the optimal dunk time. There person astir apt been millions of attempts to divided the cooky evenly, with an adjacent magnitude of crème filling connected some sides.

According to cooky science, this is each but impossible.

As Food & Wine reports, successful a 2022 insubstantial published successful Physics of Fluids, researchers astatine the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took a person look astatine manual manipulation of the Oreo and whether immoderate 1 circumstantial twisting method could nutrient the perfect part of ingredients. (As astir know, the classical Oreo consists of 2 cocoa wafers sandwiching vanilla crème filling.) While seemingly frivolous, the survey falls nether rheology, oregon however non-Newtonian worldly flows erstwhile subjected to extracurricular forces.

In bid to prosecute an answer, a 3D-printed instrumentality dubbed the “Oreometer” was created that could repetition aggregate ways of separating the wafers. The crème “behaves” otherwise depending connected however 1 approaches the counter-rotation of the cookies. It was possible, researchers believed, that 1 method could perchance effect successful an adjacent magnitude of the filling near connected each newly-single wafer.

But this was not to be—at least, not successful the mode you mightiness like. Trying each conceivable twisting configurations arsenic good arsenic antithetic varieties of Oreos to execute what the insubstantial describes arsenic “postmortem crème distribution,” nary resulted successful the crème being divided successful fractional truthful it was distributed crossed the aboveground of each wafer. At best, the crème separated into a half-moon signifier connected each, resulting successful a wafer that was half-bare.

The insubstantial indicates that a imaginable crushed for this improvement is successful however the Oreo is manufactured: The filling is applied to the bottommost wafer, past topped disconnected with a 2nd wafer. Because the filling makes aboveground interaction with the bottommost for a infinitesimal longer, it tends to adhere much tightly to it, making immoderate benignant of adjacent organisation unlikely. Achieving the half-moon effect tends to hap with Oreos that are older.

If shaper Nabisco wanted much equitable crème separation, the insubstantial speculates that adding much texture to the wafer could help.

The MIT squad was besides capable to gauge the magnitude of torque needed to twist an Oreo apart. It’s astir the aforesaid needed to crook a doorknob.

[h/t Food & Wine]