Make you Fink on Friday

A departure from the normal.

Have you ever wondered about coffee rings. You know, those annoy stains that litter your furniture, or worse, your best white linen table cloth?

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The Physics of Coffee Rings Finally Explained

It’s Monday morning. Another work week begins; another cup of coffee to the rescue. If you’re not careful, you might spill a bit of that precious coffee and then later wonder (à la Jerry Seinfeld) — What is the deal with that coffee ring on the table? Why does it form a ring with dark, outer edges? You can imagine Seinfeld asking this, right?

Well, it turns out there’s an answer for this. And it comes straight from a laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Yes, my friends, it all comes down to the shape of the particles in the liquid. Coffee is made up of spherical particles, and they get distributed unevenly, with some pushing outward towards an edge and forming dark rings. Meanwhile, other liquids are made up of oblong particles that get distributed evenly, hence no rings. The UPenn video above breaks it all down for you.

Amazingly, this isn’t our first post on Physics and Coffee. Here’s a quick look at how they drink coffee at zero gravity in the International Space Station. Enjoy!

Source: Open Culture

Comment:

Why must everything be reduced to science? Can’t we just take some things as read, that happen?

Just enjoy the coffee!