Spaghetti thrown to the ground won't order by themselves as they are granular rods with energy dissipations. However, they will order upon effective 'thermalization' (e.g. shaking). Moreover, a monolayer of granular rods may order either into a tetratic state with four-fold rotational symmetry, or a uniaxial nematic state with only one preferred direction, depending on the length-to-width ratio. Interestingly, the critical critical ratio ~ 7.3 agrees well with Monte Carlo simulation of hard rectangles that are thermally driven.

Such a bridge between systems in (e.g. liquid crystals) and out of (e.g. granular rods) thermodynamic equilibrium helps to extend existing knowledge of LC systems to the wide-spreading nonequilibrium systems in nature: From bacteria colonies to fish schools.

The goal is to find out: What is unversal for both equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems, and what is specific?