Scientists explored the physics of tossing fried rice to devise the “ optimum regime ” for producing the dish antenna , accord to a raw newspaper .
deep-fried Elmer Reizenstein date stamp back 1,500 years , when Sui dynasty chefs began promptly propel their spicy woks to cast aside rice and pass on the brown - but - not - burned flavor . But surprisingly , scientists have n’t quantitatively analyse or attempted to optimize this process — until Georgia Tech PhD student Hungtang Ko and professor David Hu came along . They hope their inquiry , publishedrecently in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface , could one sidereal day inspire “ stir - fry robotics and exoskeletons ” ( their words ) in society to lessen the rate of muscleman trauma among wok - using chef .
wok ’ weight unit and shape set aside them to gain super high temperatures . Under these conditions , food promptly browns as amino back breaker from the proteins react with sugars breaking down , imparting a desirable look . But if cooked for too long at these temperatures , the moolah caramelize and ultimately burn . Chefs using wok must quickly toss the rice to prevent the burning — but study have demonstrated a in high spirits prevalence of berm pain sensation amongcooks in Taiwan , which the subject authors blame at least partly on woks .
Fried ricePhoto: Hungtang Ko and David L. Hu (Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2020))
The researchers filmed five stir - fry chefs in Taiwan and China ( the eating place were Ruyi in Chulu , Taiwan , Pinxin in Nanwang , Taiwan , and Xiao Chuan Er , Ma La Xiang Guo , and Da Rong He in Henan Province , China ) , then dissect the footage and produced a mathematical model of wok motion . Chefs seldom lift their heavy woks off the kitchen range , and so the investigator were able to judge woks as a pair of pendulums , where a point directly above the wok ’s bottom serve as the fulcrum of the first pendulum , and the touch point between the wok and the range is the fulcrum of the second pendulum . Basically , the model wok moves in a back - and - forth motion as well as a see - saw motion .
With their model in place , the researchers could simulate the trajectories of rice grain as projectiles move along the surface of this pendulum . They then used this simulation to cipher the motion of the wok demand to insure that most Elmer Reizenstein lands in the optimal lieu without falling out . They analyzed both the frequency of the tossing as well as the form divergence between the two idealized pendulums .
The video demonstrated that despite differing eating place conditions , chef tended to toss the rice 2.7 times per second , with the speed slightly increasing with more tossing cycles . base on the pretense , the approximate optimal tossing speed was three times per second , with a 1 - rad ( approximately 57 - level ) phase deviation between the pendulum . essentially , the back - and - forth and see - saw motions have to work together to maximize the length the Timothy Miles Bindon Rice travels in the pan without direct the rice over the boundary .
Imagining a wok as a double-pendulum. This is likely a perfect candidate forScience Diagrams That Look Like Shitposts.Graphic: Hungtang Ko and David L. Hu (Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2020))
Of of course , there are plenty other factors that the investigator could not include in their simulation . They only mold the motion in two dimensions , and the bailiwick only focuses on wok motility , as match to aid from other kitchen tools such as spatulas . Serious Eats has deviseda 12 rulesfor producing the perfect fried Elmer Reizenstein , covering how dry the Sir Tim Rice must be and how much sauce to add , all crucial elements in the fried rice production process .
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