walking with coffee

May 23, 2012 at 8:40 am | | literature, nerd, science@home

I love this paper: H. C. Mayer and R. Krechetnikov. Walking with coffee: Why does it spill? Phys. Rev. E 2012, 85, 046117.

In our busy lives, almost all of us have to walk with a cup of coffee. While often we spill the drink, this familiar phenomenon has never been explored systematically. Here we report on the results of an experimental study of the conditions under which coffee spills for various walking speeds and initial liquid levels in the cup. These observations are analyzed from the dynamical systems and fluid mechanics viewpoints as well as with the help of a model developed here. Particularities of the common cup sizes, the coffee properties, and the biomechanics of walking proved to be responsible for the spilling phenomenon. The studied problem represents an example of the interplay between the complex motion of a cup, due to the biomechanics of a walking individual, and the low-viscosity-liquid dynamics in it.

Genius. Here’s a great figure from the paper:

Fun stuff. It would be especially cool if they designed a new cup shape to minimize coffee oscillations.

chemicals ad campaign

May 16, 2012 at 9:41 am | | science and the public, science@home

Paul has a good first draft of a chemicals ad campaign. But I was more inspired by Klaas Wynne‘s “We love … eat … live chemicals” poster:

The reason I like it is that it points out that “chemical-free” is a stupid label, and that not all chemicals are bad (at the right doses). This type of poster could be also applied to “chemical-free” shampoos, by listing what’s in natural coconut and mint oils. I also think it would be cool to draw all those chemicals (make the size of the structure correspond to the relative amount in the apple), and repeat for several “natural” and man-made products.

I think that the “We love chemicals” posters could be combined with a set of “Natural isn’t aways safe” posters. For instance, Andrea writes about an example of dangerous natural foodstuffs. And there’s always Jim Collman’s book Naturally Dangerous.

Here are my quick drafts:

I’m moderately satisfied with them.

UPDATE: MRW posted his really cool posters:

Very cool. I like them, MRW!

heineken solvent

May 15, 2012 at 4:05 pm | | literature

(hat tip to efdm and brsmblog.com.)

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