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research article

Science of a coffee cup: A physicist walks into a bar…

Bossart, Aleksi
•
Fleury, Romain  
•
Apffel, Benjamin  
March 1, 2025
Physics Of Fluids

… and annoys everyone with unsolicited experiments. The present paper proposes a short pedagogical review of the various phenomena that can be observed in a coffee cup with little to no equipment. The physical domains spanned include acoustics, optics, and, of course, fluid mechanics. The variety of experimental and theoretical techniques introduced throughout the paper makes it suitable for a broad audience. For each topic, we first propose an experimental realization before introducing a minimal model to explain the observations. We conclude each section with a discussion of more advanced work in the literature and related applications. We provide detailed experimental procedures and videos of the experiments, which can be freely used for teaching purposes. The phenomena presented here also show remarkable efficiency as ice-breakers for morning coffee in laboratories or at conferences.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1063/5.0253960
Scopus ID

2-s2.0-86000288101

Author(s)
Bossart, Aleksi

Swiss Science Center Technorama

Fleury, Romain  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Apffel, Benjamin  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Date Issued

2025-03-01

Published in
Physics Of Fluids
Volume

37

Issue

3

Article Number

037119

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LWE  
Available on Infoscience
March 20, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/248067
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