Supervisor: Steen Brøndsted Nielsen

How could Jesus walk on water? Could we somehow do the same? This colloquium seeks to investigate exactly this and hopefully come up with a solution. Through discussion of basic fluid mechanics and fluid characteristics, and specifically the viscosity of non-Newtonian fluids, the shear-thickening fluid oobleck (mixture of water and starch) is highlighted as a possible solution to the problem. Using the knowledge acquired, an investigative experiment is constructed where data is collected and processed, yielding the minimum weight ratio between the components, where the fluid is walkable.

The scientific approach is an extremely powerful way to investigate and explain nature’s sometimes complicated and non-intuitive behaviour.  This colloquium illustrates usage of this deductive mind set in the process of finding an explanation and thus presents both a possible solution to the problem, but more importantly an example of how one could approach the problem scientifically.