The characteristic pop can be explained with three mathematical equations, say US and France researchers.
Science student Vineeth Chandran Suja broke class in France when she decided to investigate.
He developed a series of equations with his professor, Dr. Ing. Abdul Barakat Ecole polytechnique to explain the typical sound that accompanies the release of the connection between the fingers and hand bones.
“The first equation describes the pressure variations inside our joint when we crack our knuckles,” he told.
“The second equation is a well-known equation which describes the size variations of bubbles in response to pressure variations.
“And the third equation that we wrote down was coupling the size variation of the bubbles to ones that produce sounds.”
His model confirms the idea that the sound of cracking is due to small bubbles that collapse in the fluid of the joint as the pressure changes.
For decades scientists have been discussing the cause of the outbreak when we broke our knuckles. With the help of computer models, a French team of researchers could have found the answer.
As the authors in the new article published in Scientific Reports, cracking ankles caused by a “collapsing cavitation bubble in the synovial fluid inside a metacarpophalangeal joint during an articular release.” Easier is the sound of microscopic gas bubbles collapsing within the finger joint, but not completely. Scientists first proposed this theory almost 50 years ago, but the latter used a combination of laboratory experiments and a computer simulation to amplify the case.
It seems strange, but scientists have studied this physical feature since the early 1900s and could not reach consensus on the cause of the burst sound. The seemingly endless debate is the result of unconvincing experimental evidence and the difficulty of seeing the process in action: the whole phenomenon lasts only about 300 milliseconds. However, what the scientists have agreed that cracking ankles is not something everyone can do, not all fingers can produce the sound of pop, and it takes about 20 minutes before an ankle is broken again.
To clarify things, and to add more support for existing experimental data, V. Dran Suja and Abdul Bakarat of the Ecole Polytechnique in France took geometric representations of the metacarpophalangeal joint (MCP) where the eruption takes place and were mathematical equations that improved computer simulations of ankle cracking , Or more precisely, computer simulations that showed what happened just before the sound on our fingers.
It also confirms why some people can not break their knuckles. If you have a large gap between the bones in your knuckles, the pressure in the fluid will not drop enough to activate the sound.