Snakes Moving Through Walls of Different Widths Used to Study the Physics of How Beams Buckle

Snakes moving through gaps between walls of different widths were used to to study the physics of how beams buckle. The video is part of a study by Junfeng Xiao and Xi Chen from Columbia University recently published in the Royal Society journal Interface.

The snakes move their bodies in different ways depending on the width of the area between walls, and Xiao and Chen propose in their work that their wavelike movement compares to how beams buckle between lateral constraints.

via Gizmodo