R.I.P. Scout26
It wasn't so much that the bubbles "descending" in a nitrogen-aerated stout due to fluid dynamics was the mystery, but rather exactly why those flow dynamics occur in a pint glass to begin with. From the arXiv abstract:Over the last ten years or so, physicists have begun to pick this problem apart. Most recently they've shown that it is not the bubbles that sink but the liquid, which circulates in a way that is downwards near the glass walls and upwards in the interior. As long as the downward flow of the liquid is faster than the upward motion of the bubbles, they will appear to sink. But that still leaves a puzzle: why does the liquid circulate in this way?That's the puzzle that the Irish mathematicians solved.
If it wasn't officially funded, it wasn't True Science.Does it happen with champagne? Club soda?