Welcome to Day 22 of my July Trivia posts.*
Trivia: Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
This may or may not be accurate. If you never use the rubber band, it doesn’t matter if you refrigerate it or not. The truth is that a cold rubber band stretches more than a hot rubber band, so it might last longer because it doesn’t break as easily.
Were you surprised to learn that cold rubber bands stretch more than hot ones? I certainly was. We think of hot things stretching more, like tar, glass, or honey. However, the structure of the rubber is different. It is made of long polymer chains. The hotter they get, the shorter the chains get, causing the rubber to contract. Thus a hot rubberband doesn’t stretch as much as a cold one.
Scientific American has an experiment that you can do with your kids to see this in action. It’s always good to prove trivia yourself.
I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. I learned something new, which I love.
*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.