Along the Grain | English | Fun with tearing
Channel: Arvind Gupta
Date: 2014-11-22

In this experiment the girl is tearing a newspaper ALONG its grain and she is able to tear fairly long and parallel strips. On the other hand the boy is tearing the newspaper ACROSS the grain and tears only short pieces.  Let’s investigate it further. We know that newsprint is made of plant material which have fibers and are oriented in a special direction. Take a single sheet of newspaper. Fold it and cut it in two equal halves. We will investigate what happens if we tear it ALONG the grain and ACROSS it. 

First as we tear the newspaper along the grain we get long parallel strips. It is much easier to tear the newsprint along its fibers. However, if you tear the same newsprint ACROSS its grain you will only get very short pieces. Similarly, wood is always planed along its grain for smoothness. Planing the wood ACROSS the grain will make it very rough. This work was supported by IUCAA and Tata Trust. This film was made by Ashok Rupner TATA Trust: Education is one of the key focus areas for Tata Trusts, aiming towards enabling access of quality education to the underprivileged population in India. To facilitate quality in teaching and learning of Science education through workshops, capacity building and resource creation, Tata Trusts have been supporting Muktangan Vigyan Shodhika (MVS), IUCAA's Children’s Science Centre, since inception. To know more about other initiatives of Tata Trusts, please visit www.tatatrusts.org