This video still depicts a rubber band in the middle of recoiling. Researchers at the University of Provence in Aix-Marselle, France, used ultra high-speed video to study “dynamic buckling instability” in super slow motion. The clips remind me of Man Ray’s surrealist films. From New Scientist:
When a stretched rubber band is released at one end, a front of stress-free elastic material propagates towards the clamped end. When this front rebounds it results in a compression front that propagates backwards. This triggers an elastic instability referred to as dynamic buckling.Normal buckling occurs when a solid rod is compressed by a load above a critical threshold. The material can no longer support the load and maintain its structure, and so the rod bends.
Dynamic buckling is the version of this instability which occurs when the compressive load is applied suddenly – when a rod is smashed into along its axis, for example. It creates a well-defined compression wave that zings along the rod.
