Nutty Putty

Nutty Putty

Science Background: Substances like Silly Putty are part of a class of materials called polymers. Like other molecules, polymers are compounds, but they are large and may contain tens of thousands of atoms. Compare this, for example, to water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen that contains three atoms. A good way to visual the difference between small molecules (like water) and polymers (also called macromolecules) is to think of the size difference between a crystal of salt (small) and a strand of spaghetti (larger and longer). Like the strand of spaghetti, polymers are long chains of molecules strung together. These strands can also be tangled up to create a giant mess of polymer chains.