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On dark and stormy night, Sh3rlock_Holm3s was reclining in front of a blazing fireplace (which was the screensaver on the computer), reading the following PM on the forum at 221BBakerStreet.com:

Urgent: Please help!

Hi, I am in a lot of trouble, and I remembered reading about you in a blog, and I thought that you might be able to help me.

Six months ago, after a terrible break-up with my long-time GF, I joined this "religious organization" calling themselves The Circle of Eziam. But now I realize that it's actually a cult, but I fear it may be too late. They will not allow me to leave until I've passed their so called Final Test, and they have made me leave all my assets to them in my will.

Tonight, the Oracle of Eziam brought us to the Sacred Waters (which is actually their private olympic sized swimming pool), and told us that tomorrow, we will have the Final Test. He said "I will pray to the great God Eziam to bless these waters tonight. Tomorrow, you must cross the Sacred Waters on foot. Those who are fervently devoted shall be allowed to pass, those whose devotion is found to be lackluster will be swallowed up in the Sacred Waters." Then he bid us to go and pray well in our rooms, and not to disturb him in his prayers.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I fear for my life. Please, tell me what I should do in the test tomorrow!

Sh3rlock_Holm3s took a sip of black coffee, then hit the reply button. The advice was one word:

Run.

The next day Sh3rlock_Holm3s was browsing the a news page and saw a story about a cult leader being arrested for attempting to murder his disciples. One of the disciples and gone and told all the others what to do for the final test, and then, after passing the test, left and went to the police.

Sh3rlock_Holm3s smiled. Time for some cookies.

The question to all the readers at home, then, is: why did Sh3rlock_Holm3s give that advice?

It has to do with what the cult leader did to the water...the great God Eziam indeed "blessed" it...

;)
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Question goes to Lonahte... Subtract ohh and I give a not old solid...

Eziam is Maize backwards. Flip my sentence above and then reverse again until it makes sense...

Answer comes from Ethanol... Add h20 and you get ton new liquid...

Ethanol comes from Answer... Add water and you get a non-newtonian liquid

Answer is corn... cornflour in water allows you to run over it, but you cannot walk.

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As he was praying to Eziam

Maize

I assume he added a little something to the water...

He blessed the pool with cornflour/custard powder (ie. maize starch).

This forms a non-newtonian fluid (I think the right term is dilatant or shear-thickening, but others will tell you it's thixotropic, so please feel free to correct me) which gets more viscous the more pressure that is applied to it. Normally, the particles flow past each other easily as they are suspended in the water, so it acts like a fluid. But when a pressure is applied, it acts more and more like a solid (the starch particles are pushed together, squeezing out the water between them).

So: walk and it's a "liquid" so you sink/drown but run and it's a "solid".

Custard powder and water - hours of messy fun.

Edited by foolonthehill
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hehe...yeah, the more scientific knowledge you have, the better the pranks you can pull...;P

but you'd actually need *a lot* of cornstarch...:P

I know about this cornstarch thingy cause I often use of 'em while cooking Chinese food . Got practical experience about it :rolleyes:

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You know, I actually saw this on an episode of Numb3rs a while ago. B))

Haha...I never watched that, but they filmed on my college campus, and apparently some guy my friend knew had his hand in one episode, because they wanted to make the lead character seem like he knew what he was doing while writing equations, so they had a math grad student's hand as a "stand-in" for the actor's hand...;P

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:lol: i was just thinking that would make for a pretty sweet olympic game: the 400m cornstarch dash perhaps

Yes, what is better than having to wade through cornstarch to fish out dead corpses of Olympic athletes who just were not good enough. :P

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