Is this possible ?

GJ02 · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:49

Is this possible in any way ?

To break down and item into its smallest elements and display them all as individual items / molecules
For instance, a slice of bread
Can you get all the ingredients that make bread, and break each one down bit by bit, giving you individual elements of each singular ingredient.
So instead of having say 5 parts that make bread, after each of the 5 were broken down you would have 50 or 60

Tummy · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:52

Glaucus · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:52

What do you mean. Visually or just components.
They have spectrometers which gives the breakdown of all the parts in the sample.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometer

Edrof · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:53

You're trying to smuggle Hovis through Mexican customs, aren't you gringo?

kwerk · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:54

Yes, as soon as you figure out how to reverse entropy.

rgritchie · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:56

GJ02 · 8 Apr 2011 at 17:59

AcidHell2 said:
What do you mean. Visually or just components.
They have spectrometers which gives the breakdown of all the parts in the sample.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometer

how far you could visually break components down

Derek W · 8 Apr 2011 at 18:02

GJ02 said:
how far you could visually break components down

so what you're saying is if you per chance took a pasty. you're wanting to find out the best way to reduce it, or smash it, into its basic properties?

Vonhelmet · 8 Apr 2011 at 18:38

Why would you want to?

I'm asking seriously, because it might help to give a serious answer.

I mean, if you're talking flour, water, yeast, salt... Anything else in bread? I dunno. Then you're looking at 2 Hs and an O for the water, 1 Na and 1 Cl for the salt, loads of C, H and O for the flour and loads of C, H, N and O for the yeast. Possibly a whole bunch more stuff besides, depending on the ingredients you use.

GJ02 · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:14

TBH i just wanted to know if it was at all possible
Im talking breaking salt right down, yeast right down, etc etc
Just something I wondered that's all

Castiel · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:17

GJ02 said:
TBH i just wanted to know if it was at all possible
Im talking breaking salt right down, yeast right down, etc etc
Just something I wondered that's all

Just leave it to rot, it'll break down soon enough.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:18

Yes it is but its far from easy.

It depends on how accurate you want to be, eg if you wanted to break coca cola down to its lowest level for an exact match it would be very difficult.

Castiel · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:23

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10488400

http://cerealchemistry.aaccnet.org/doi/abs/10.1094/CCHEM.1998.75.5.721?journalCode=cchem

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...bcfae8f178f3b4f4fd7c8a970779da8a&searchtype=a

and so on......

Pawnless Endgame · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:41

I'm not sure about the other ingredients although I know that salt is just 2 elements - sodium and chloride. Both pretty dangerous by themselves but edible as the salt compound.

SexyGreyFox · 8 Apr 2011 at 19:53

Castiel said:
Just leave it to rot, it'll break down soon enough.

Like pee in a jar

~~#M-Bizzle#~~ · 8 Apr 2011 at 20:02

The only way I can think of doing this would be to use an electron microscope to image each ingredient of the bread separately.

So, get a picture from the microscope of the flour molecules/atoms, the atoms of salt etc etc...

Salsa · 8 Apr 2011 at 20:31

1) Infiltrate CERN complex.

2) Power up Large Hadron Collider.

3) Insert 1x Hovis Soft White (Thick Sliced of course) into one tube of Large Hadron Collider.

4) Insert 1x Hovis Wholemeal (Medium Sliced this time) into opposite tube of Large Hadron Collider.

5) Fire Hovis at eachother at close to the speed of light.

6) Examine the results.

There are one or two possible hazzards with this suggestion however

There exists the possibility that you may creat a Hovis induced Singularity which will wipe out the Earth. Alternatively you may simply create Hovis "Best of Both"

Morbius · 8 Apr 2011 at 21:02

"Is that the Higgs boson?"

"No sir, it's only a crumb."

asim18 · 8 Apr 2011 at 21:09

The chemical process of making bread is irreversible. Baking the bread mix changes the molecular structure of the ingredients.

mrbios · 8 Apr 2011 at 21:16

Derek W said:
so what you're saying is if you per chance took a pasty. you're wanting to find out the best way to reduce it, or smash it, into its basic properties?

Got to admit i laughed

EDIT: either not many people read it the way you meant it and just browsed over it or i'm just easily amused? Most likely the latter i guess.

Is this possible ?

Wise Guy