Nailing jelly to a wall: is it attainable?

Supplies

I sourced the next supplies from Sainsbury’s and Focus.

They’re: a 16oz claw hammer, a 200g pack of three” (75mm) spherical wire nails, a
collection of 135g packs of Hartley’s jelly cubes, and a plank of wooden,
dimensions 850x200x18mm (approx. 33½”x7¾”x¾”). The plank of
wooden will play the a part of the “wall”. The kind of wooden, and its precise
dimensions, usually are not necessary.

The size of the nails is necessary. Particularly, the nails must be longer
than the depth of the bowl supposed to be used because the jelly mould. That is to
allow the nail to go proper by way of the completed jelly and into the wall with out
the nail first disapparing into the jelly.

The image under reveals the proposed jelly mould (an unusual dessert
bowl) and one of many nails subsequent to it for comparability functions.

A primary try

A field of jelly, as bought from the grocery store, accommodates twelve joined
“cubes”. The orange flavour is proven under. That is “concentrated” or “neat”
jelly; the concept is that water is added to supply precise jelly. In fact,
these cubes are way more viscous than the diluted combination produced by including
water. Subsequently, it must be simpler to nail the concentrated cubes to the
wall than the precise jelly.

Actually, the jelly did not even want a nail to remain on the wall. It simply caught
there. For good measure, I drove a nail by way of it. The jelly held in
place.

That is referred to as “dishonest”.

Making the jelly

My first try being considerably towards the spirit of the proverb, I made a decision
to repeat the experiment with correct jelly. The process for making jelly from
the jelly cubes is documented on the reverse of the jelly bins; a abstract is
given right here.

The image under reveals the tools required: some jelly cubes (lime this
time), a measuring jug, and a few boiling water.

Don’t eat any of the neat jelly cubes, irrespective of how good they appear. They’re
extremely candy and doubtless addictive; for those who eat all of them you will not have
any left for the experiment.

Pour half a pint (284ml) of boiling water right into a jug, and add the cubes. Stab
the cubes indiscriminately till they’ve all dissolved. Then add one other half
pint of chilly water, so the jug accommodates a pint (568ml) of jelly combine.

On condition that the intention is that this jelly be nailed to a wall, we would
intuitively get higher outcomes if we add much less water than required, with the intention to
give a thicker and presumably sturdier combine. Nevertheless, on this experiment the
jelly can be ready based on the directions on the packet to make sure a
honest check.

Pour the jelly combine into no matter is getting used for the jelly mould. On this
case, as talked about earlier than, we’re utilizing a easy dessert bowl. The one
restriction on the kind of mould used is that its depth must be lower than the
size of the nails.

In case you reproduce this experiment, you’ll in all probability discover that there’s an
irritatingly small quantity of jelly combination left over within the jug as soon as the mould
is full. Pour this footling quantity of jelly right into a glass, and place it within the
fridge alongside the bowl. For max confusion, do not inform any of your
housemates about it.

Lastly, go away the jelly to set in a single day.

Nailing it to a wall

When the jelly has set, cowl it with a plate, upturn your entire association,
and thoroughly elevate the bowl off the jelly. Then realise that the jelly remains to be
caught to the bowl. Hit the bowl with a spoon just a few occasions (to no avail) earlier than
attacking the perimeters of the jelly with a skinny sharp knife to loosen it.

The logical subsequent step can be to select up the jelly and nail it to some floor
perpendicular to the ground. Sadly, the primary of those steps was
inconceivable; attempting to select up the jelly with naked palms resulted in its
partial disintegration. So, I opted for a compromise; I received the jelly again in
the bowl, and upturned it immediately onto the plank, whereas it was horizontal.

With the plank horizontal, I drove a nail by way of the centre of the jelly and
into the plank.

I then added just a few extra nails to carry the jelly in place. Sadly, even
with 9 nails in it, the jelly was beginning to break across the nails when
the plank was tilted.

Seeing nothing higher to do, I added three extra nails at strategic factors. When
the plank was tilted, half the jelly broke off utterly and fell to the ground.
The weak factors gave the impression to be close to the nails.

The jelly’s structural integrity now having been significantly compromised, the remainder
of the jelly adopted about half a minute later. This try at nailing jelly
to a wall had subsequently resulted in fairly a convincing failure.

However wait…

I out of the blue remembered that I had extra jelly. The glass into which I poured the
extra from the jug was nonetheless sitting within the fridge. I retrieved it and
extricated the jelly. Maybe a smaller quantity of jelly would nail to the wall
simpler?

Taking no probabilities, I not solely nailed the jelly to the plank utilizing 5 nails,
but in addition added a crescent of eight nails under the jelly to catch any wayward
lumps.

This labored for roughly half a minute. Sadly, though the jelly
that fell off was briefly caught within the crescent association of nails, it fell
by way of the gaps after a small period of time.

Earlier than lengthy, there have been solely hint quantities of jelly left on the wall.

Conclusion

Given some jelly blended based on normal procedures and a vertical wall, it
will not be attainable to nail the previous to the latter and have it keep there for any
important period of time. Moreover, these experiments have been carried out by
nailing the jelly to a horizontal floor which was then steadily tilted.
Nailing jelly to a wall whereas the wall is vertical is an intractable drawback in
itself because of the issue in selecting up jelly with the palms with out it
disintegrating.

Even utilizing many nails to assemble a receptacle for the aim of catching the
jelly, which isn’t technically “nailing it to the wall”, resulted in failure.
This was as a result of the gaps between the nails afford to the jelly a simple technique of
egress from the receptacle.

Additional analysis into the realm may contain the nailing to the wall of a
stronger jelly combine. Alternatively, the “wall” could possibly be positioned, nails first, into
the jelly whereas it is setting, to permit the jelly to set across the nails. Then
within the morning the bowl might be eliminated, leaving the jelly nailed to the wall.

The outdated proverb, then, is justified, and the reader might say that an inconceivable
or near-impossible process is “like nailing jelly to the wall” secure within the
data that the assertion has some scientific proof to corroborate it.