ELi5: Why are Prince Rupert’s drops so indestructible?

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I’m very curious.

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14 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

When the outside cools rapidly it shrinks , this puts inward facing stress on the molecules

Then the molten bit inside cools and continues to do the exact same thing but pulling on a solid essentially

This causes the molecules to be under such an extreme amount of stress that the amount that can be exerted by a external force is negligible , even a bullet doesn’t impart enough force and can be shattered

However all this internal force pulls into the tail where it’s weakest , think if you had millions of ropes all being pulled to one spot. This puts a lot of stress on the tail that is really only kept together by a very thin layer this time so it’s possible to break it with a reasonable amount of force.

Once it’s broken though all that stress force has a place to go , outwards , which causes it to quite literally explode outward

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