(CNN) --
Oreology: The study of cream-filled chocolate chip cookies.
Haven't you heard of it?
Well, you've probably studied it, experimenting with dipping, twisting, and separating to find the best Oreo cookie-eating experience.
Whether you prefer the filling intact in one half of the cookie or spread evenly when you open it, the researchers asked a long-standing question: How can you make sure the Oreo cookie comes out the way you want it every time?
What makes Oreo cookies still relevant after 110 years?
"When I was little, I would try to twist the cookies to spread the cream evenly between the two parts so that there was a little bit on both halves, which in my opinion tastes so much better than having one cookie with a lot of cream and another with almost none. This it was hard to do when you were trying to do it manually," says Crystal Owens, lead author of a study published Tuesday in the academic journal American Institute of Physics and a researcher in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
So he improved it.
The researchers devised an Oreometer, a device designed to crack the cracker with a scientifically precise amount of torque (a measure of the force used to rotate an object).
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The hope was that, with the perfect twist, the researchers could manipulate the cookie filling to distribute it evenly between the two cookies.
But they could not.
"We learned, sadly, that even if you twist an Oreo perfectly, the cream will almost always end up mostly on one of the two cookies, with a delamination of the cream, and there's no easy way to get it to spread between the cookies," she said. Owens.
For those of us who aren't Oreo scientists, delamination is when something splits into layers.
According to the study, if the biscuit is separated homogeneously, it is probably not the result of delicate and precise work.
It has more to do with the level of adhesion between the cream and the biscuit, which is altered by some factor before reaching your hands.
This could be a question to be resolved in a later study.
"We didn't even begin to answer all the questions someone might have about Oreos or cookies, so we made our Oreometer, so anyone with access to a 3D printer can make other measurements," Owens said.
People can be very picky about how they eat their cookies, but researchers found that it can be harder than you think to control how they turn out.
Serious science for a dumb question
Randy Ewoldt, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was reviewing the study one night when his 11-year-old son peeked over his shoulder.
He knows that his father works in rheology, a branch of physics that studies the flow of matter between liquids and solids, but like most children, his father's work doesn't hold his interest for long.
Until he saw the word Oreo on the paper, of course.
"When we talk about the physics of complicated materials, and there are a lot of them, Oreo cookie cream is one that's immediately accessible to a lot of people," Ewoldt said.
"To bring people closer to a much more complicated world, this can serve as a gateway."
The studio is on Owen's mind every time he eats an Oreo, and now he hopes it will pique the curiosity of people outside the industry as well.
"I hope that people can use this information to improve the way they eat cookies when they open an Oreo, or when they soak it in milk," Owens said.
"I hope that people can also be inspired to investigate other puzzles in the kitchen in a scientific way."
"The best scientific research, even at MIT, is driven by curiosity to understand the world around us, when someone sees something strange or unknown and takes the time to think 'I wonder why that is so?'"
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