Spaghetti love: Hard facts about the long noodle

A plate of pasta tastes even better in company ^{_{Photo: stock.adobe.com/Davide Angelini}}

From our editorial team

The most popular pasta in the world. Whether in tomato sauce, all vongole or simply with butter and parsley, a round of spaghetti always works. And if you splash some sauce on your chin, that's a good time to distract yourself with a load of spaghetti knowledge. Our TOP 4 about spaghetti:

Top 1: The McDonald's flop - the McSpaghetti

If you can sell burgers and fries worldwide, spaghetti shouldn't be a problem either. Mistake! In the 1970s, McDonald's introduced pasta. Pasta in cardboard, not appetising for many.

In 1980, the noodle was taken off the menu. Only in the Philippines and in Orlando (Florida) is spaghetti still a success today - and became a trending topic on Twitter in the summer of 2021. Even McDonald's was at a loss and asked the swarm intelligence. What had happened? A holidaymaker, who was born long after the spaghetti test run, was on holiday in the Philippines. He posted a photo on Twitter. And off he went.

mcspaghetti — **Chicken leg with spaghetti - in the Philippines**
^{_{Photo: https://www.mcdonalds.com.ph/}}

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Top 2: The best string in the world

The name Spaghetti comes from the Italian word spago. It means string or twine. Spaghetti is the diminutive (plural) form of it. So we eat strings, delicious little strings.

A delicious lunch in Florence

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The big pasta quiz: How well do you know Italy's pasta?

Top 3: Export hits since the Middle Ages

Spaghetti was first reported in the 12th century. The cartographer, geographer and botanist Muhammed al-Idrisi lived at the court of the Norman King Roger II in Sicily at that time. Al-Idrisi also travelled through Sicily at this time.

In 1154, his book "Libro di Ruggero", "Roger's Book" (original title "The Joy of Those Who Love to Roam the World") is published. In it, al-Idrisi reports that in Trabia (a small town east of Palermo) long dried threads are made from wheat, which are exported throughout the Mediterranean.

The classic: spaghetti with tomato sauce from the pan. — ***The classic: spaghetti with tomato sauce***
^{_{Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com}}

Pasta, basta! The 10 most famous pastas from Italy

Top 4: Nobel laureates and the noodle

The US Nobel Prize winner and physicist Richard Feynmann (*1918-†1988) also wondered why spaghetti always falls apart into more than two pieces. According to classical strength theory, the noodles should fall apart into two parts - but in fact there are at least three. For decades, research found no answer to the "pasta problem". Until 2004.

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The French researchers Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch published their research results in 2004. Their explanation: spaghetti are infinitely elastic rods. According to the Kirchhoff equations of elasticity theory, the mechanical tension in a stretched spaghetto keeps increasing.

When the noodle breaks at one point, the stress energy is converted into vibration energy. Bending waves race through the spaghetto. Where the vibrations overlap, breakage can also occur.