Science of a coffee cup: a physicist walks into a bar...

TL;DR

This paper offers a pedagogical review of observable phenomena in a coffee cup across acoustics, optics, and fluid mechanics, including experiments, models, and applications suitable for educational use.

Contribution

It introduces accessible experiments and minimal models for various coffee cup phenomena, integrating literature review and practical demonstrations for teaching.

Findings

Demonstrates multiple phenomena in a coffee cup across physical domains

Provides detailed experimental procedures and videos for educational purposes

Connects phenomena to advanced research and applications

Abstract

... 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 end each section by discussing more advanced works existing in the literature as well as related applications. We provide detailed experimental procedures and videos of the experiments that can be freely used for teaching purposes. The phenomena presented here also show remarkable efficiency as icebreakers for morning coffee in laboratories or conferences.