Bending Spaghetti [SOLVED]: Maths Explained

[suolintu]

[SOLVED] Bending spaghetti

I ran into a very interesting phenomen. When bending spaghetti, it always breaks into three or more pieces. By bending it, you can't break a piece of spaghetti into two pieces (note: bending from both ends or one end stationary). I heard that there is a mathematical solution for this problem. I was however unable to find it, and was wondering if someone here could help me out.

 

[Edgardo]

http://www.lmm.jussieu.fr/~neukirch/frag_spag.html
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/23073
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051112/bob10.asp

 

[suolintu]

Thanks Edgardo!