ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tanada effect

Imagine you have a bunch of toy cars, and you want to line them up in a straight line. You take the first car and put it down, and then you try to put the second car right next to it. But as you try to put the second car down, it keeps bouncing off the first car and doesn't want to stay in place.

This is kind of like what happens with particles in a container. When you have a bunch of tiny particles, like grains of rice or sand, and you try to pour them into a container, they may not want to settle down and pack together tightly. This is because of something called the Tanada effect.

The Tanada effect is named after a scientist named Shuichi Tanada who studied the behavior of particles in containers. He discovered that when a container is filled with tiny particles, like sand or rice, they tend to settle in a way that leaves space between them. This space can make it difficult for more particles to settle in place, because they bounce off each other and don't stay put.

So, why does this happen? Well, it has to do with the size and shape of the particles. When particles are very small, they can be influenced by the forces around them, like gravity and air pressure. This can cause them to bounce off each other and not settle in place. In addition, particles that are not perfectly round or smooth can also contribute to the Tanada effect, because they tend to clump together and resist settling.

Overall, the Tanada effect can make it difficult to pack particles tightly in a container. However, by understanding the behavior of these particles, scientists can come up with new ways to manipulate and control them. This can be useful in fields like materials science and engineering, where scientists are constantly trying to create new materials with specific properties.