Depending on how fast and hard they were vibrated, the beads assumed the shapes of ridges, squares, honeycomb patterns or complicated spirals, the Texas authors reported. A November 1996 article in the popular science magazine Discover described similar experiments in Behringer's own lab at Duke. They also mimic some properties of dense gases. Examples of their odd properties abound. Grain silos have been known to burst, and coal hoppers collapse, due to the unpredictable behavior of the granular materials inside them.
Avalanches are another example of unpredictability.
This conference differs from the previous two in combining the perspectives of both engineers and physicists, said Behringer and the other organizer, James Jenkins of Cornell University. Contact the WebMaster .