ATTENTION, NOBEL PRIZE JUDGES

Scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, decided to investigate the physics behind the best way of carrying coffee without causing spillages.

(Thanks to John Gregg)

Comments

[Loudmouth]

Buy a half a cup, don't walk more than 7 steps and fall over your feet watching the coffee. Thanks Mensa.

[jon]

And here I've been walking backwards with my eyes closed!

[Betsy]

Next project: how to avoid getting wet when it's raining.

[Jeff Meyerson]

Um, close the cover and drink it when you get to work?

What's my prize?

[MikeyVA(that is Virginia NOT West Virginia)]

Hey, Jeff

I was going to say put LESS coffee in the cup.

Even my students know that!

[Horace LaBadie]

Have your assistant bring the coffee, of course.

[nursecindy]

Put a lid on it.

[EyeGore]

Who funded this? Dumb question I know.

[Steve]

Next to be investigated: Bathing small children; the bathtub tsunami.

[max]

This raises the question though, how did our ancestors who created the average sized coffee mug know how to make it so the resonant frequency was the same as the average human walking gait? How did they even determine the resident frequency of a coffee mug? Just another sign of ancient aliens staring them in the face and these so-called-scientists ignored it.

[H. Hughes]

Buy a Keurig and the k-cups and make it at work.

[clankie]

Years ago, one of the furniture market buildings in west Hickory, N.C. had a fast-closing elevator door that nailed anyone carrying a coffee cup in front of them every time. The FIL got splashed by it once and thereafter, delighted in leading others into the same trap. ( It was kinda funny )

[O the Umanity]

Well, DUH!

I avoid spillageness by leavin' the cup on the counter and slurpin' it (noisily, of course, which IRRITATED my Pa to no end! Which wuz part of the plan ...) until the level is low enuf to not oscillate overly much over the edge ... then I walk to the sittin' area, watchin' THE FLOOR, becuz I've got enuf eye/hand/neuromuscular sense of interaction to tell if the cup is vibratin' too much, and then I sit down, and finish the cuppa ...

I learnt all this due to the one time I spilled coffee on the keyboard ... tooken a great part of the rest of the day, but no tech support needed ...

Heck, if I can do all this (especially @ my age), I must be a really smart physicist ...

or not ... whutever ...

[Ralph]

The best way of carrying coffee without causing spillages is not to mix it with water. So there.

That way you don't have a problem with either the oscillationists or the neo-oscillationists.

[Richard the Weasel-Hearted]

That study was a piece of crap. They pointed out the cause of the problem: your rhythmic walking reinforces the coffee oscillation. Yet they failed to offer the obvious solution: vary that rhythm! You don't have to walk slowly the whole time, you just have to mix it up.

[O the Umanity]

They also ignored the fact that addin' cream or sugar (or both) to coffee raises the viscocity and surface tension a bit, so this reduces the wave action that often causes spillageness ...

Amateurs!

[Omniskeptic]

Oh, UC Santa Barbara. Run of the mill.

If they drank a bit more coffee down there, they might get better grants.