The Numbers
If it comes out of the iconic
glass bottle at any other
rate, the company won't
sell it. But lucky for you-
and your fries-science
can help speed things up.
"Ketchup is a Bingham
plastic, meaning it behaves
like a solid under low
stress and a liquid under
high stress," says Michael
Graham, a professor at the
University of WisconsinMadison and editor of the
Journal of Non-Newtonian
Fluid Mechanics. The trick
is to shake the bottle and
then smack it-the glass
will exert force on the reliquefied ketchup and help
to "push" it out. Heinz won't
reveal its speed-calibrating
methods. For now at least,
they remain saucy secrets.
46 SPIRIT JUNE 2014
The speed
of Heinz
ketchup is
.028
miles
per hour.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM VOORHES
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spirit Magazine - June 2014