Secret to Perfect Sandcastles Revealed

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. (Image credit: Photo Courtesy of Team Sandtastic)

Scientists have cracked the code for building the tallest possible sandcastle: Use very little water.

Research has shown that water holds sand together by forming "liquid bridges" between the contact points of the grains. But too much or too little water will make the castle crumble.

That optimal mixture will allow your castle to reach a maximum height that equals roughly the radius of the base to the power of two-thirds, the researchers say. That equation means it is possible to build tall, skinny columns of sand that won't fall apart.

"Using typical values for beach sand, a cylinder with a radius of 8 inches (20 centimeters) for instance could be as tall as about 8 feet (2.4 meters), which is in quite good agreement with what can be observed for real sandcastles," the researchers wrote in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Ed Jarrett, the Guinness World Record holder for the tallest sandcastle, might want to take note. He won the honor in Connecticut last summer with a castle nearly 38-feet (nearly 12 m) tall built atop a relatively wide base.

Originally published on Live Science.

Megan Gannon
Megan Gannon
Live Science Contributor
Megan has been writing for Live Science and Space.com since 2012. Her interests range from archaeology to space exploration, and she has a bachelor's degree in English and art history from New York University. Megan spent two years as a reporter on the national desk at NewsCore. She has watched dinosaur auctions, witnessed rocket launches, licked ancient pottery sherds in Cyprus and flown in zero gravity. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.