A large order of Silly Putty
Clay Bavor at Google placed an order for an eighth of a ton of Silly Putty for himself and colleagues:
Naturally, we were all curious to see what 250 pounds of Silly Putty would look like, so before distributing the stuff, we put it all in a single pile to see. Huge mistake.(via Boing Boing)
The problem was that once together, Silly Putty doesn’t like to come apart, and none of us had any idea of how to deal with this effect. We tried everything: very strong people (didn’t work), scissors (stabbing worked, slicing didn’t), 28-gauge steel wire (broke), 22-gauge steel wire (broke), 16-gauge steel wire (too thick), and twisting and breaking (worked well for “smaller” pieces—under five pounds, that is.)