: why when you shake a bag filled with something (like food), the bigger pieces ‘rise’ to the top?
In: Physics
While that is the apparent observation, what is happening is the reverse the bigger pieces aren’t rising instead the smaller pieces are falling leaving the large ones on top.
So you shake the bag and everything leaps up and them falls down with large irregular pieces near to each other they create small irregular holes that the large pieces are too large to fit in and only the small pieces can fit through and fall to the bottom leaving the large pieces occupying the space at the top.
When a bunch of pieces of something are in a bag together, they assume the shape of the bag, with little spaces between them where they’re not touching the bag or each other. When you shake the bag they reconfigure slightly, and since the smaller pieces can more easily fit through the small spaces between everything, they fall to the bottom. So the big pieces don’t rise, the smaller pieces fall.
It’s actually more that the smaller pieces are sieving to the bottom and gathering and creating a base that the bigger chips are now sitting on.
Latest Answers