How much time will a dripped drop of coffee be a drop, before it loses its full-bodied nature? This study sniffs into the question: “On the Lifetime of a Coffee Drop,” Paul Bienvenu, Haruka Hitomi, and David Quéré, Soft Matter, epub 2026. The authors, at PSL Research University, ESPCI-Paris, France, report: As we know, a […]
At the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony Tom Lum of Scientific American interviewed the 2025 Ig Nobel Physics Prize winners, and later tried to use his new knowledge in making the Italian pasta dish called cacio e pepe. This video documents that:
One way to make it big in physics is to make pasta. Physics Magazine interviewed the Italian physicists who did exactly that — and consequently won the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize for physics. Here is the beginning of that interview (read the whole interview at the Physics Magazine web site): Pasta Physics Scoops Up an Ig Nobel […]
Piecewise, some of the mysteries about stacking blocks reveal themselves (or get revealed). This study looks at some of the stochastic stability of some kinds of heaping of blocks: “Stochastic Stability of Random Stacking of Blocks,” V. Denoël, International Journal of Solids and Structures, vol. 305, 2024, article 113094. The author, at the University of […]