Break the glass in a whole new way with a Prince Rupert’s Drop

Posted by

Prince Rupert DropVal and Galen's science tendencies led them to a really interesting and symbolic unity ceremony. They created what's called a Prince Rupert's Drop.

I'm sure some of you academics out there know what's up with this, but I had to take to Wikipedia to see what the hell this was all about (since my head jumped to a piercing I won't mention).

Here's what Val said about it:

If you drop molten glass into water, it cools very quickly but has lots of residual stresses inside. It's very strong under compression (you can't break it with a hammer), but if you snap off just the tail, the whole thing explodes in a shower of tiny glass powder.

They ended up breaking this in lieu of the traditional Jewish breaking of the glass. I kind of love the symbolism of such a hard structure with such a fragile mechanism. Plus, SCIENCE! If you want to attempt this at your ceremony, just make sure to find a helpful scientist or science teacher to make it happen safely.

And check this shit out: these guys over at Smarter Every Day decided to film a slo-mo version of this kind of drop with a high frame rate camera. At 2:31 it turns into what looks like an explosion of rainbow confetti! Plus, they totally explain the science behind it for our braining pleasure.


Via Boingboing

Check out more photos of Val and Galen's science-loving wedding here.

Meet our fave wedding vendors

Comments on Break the glass in a whole new way with a Prince Rupert’s Drop

  1. WOW! That is pretty awesome, and science is usually not fun for me! That is very, very cool!

  2. This is straight up one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and one of the most incredible “breaking the glass” alternatives, possibly ever in history ever.

  3. Whoa, seriously awesome. Boy and I are science geeks and I’m sure I could convince him to do this when we get married. Way cooler than stepping on a shot glass.

Comments are closed.