The curious true tale of the the Swedish prime minister, a Soviet submarine, and farting herring

Professor Magnus Whalberg took part, many years ago, in an odd historic passage that involved the Swedish prime minister (Carl Bildt), a Soviet submarine, and farting herring. Years after the event, in 2004, Whalberg and his colleague Håkan Westerberg were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize — though the Ig Nobel Board of Governors was at the time completely unaware […]

Guinness bubble/widget followup: limerick

A followup to yesterday’s post about “Beer bubble appreciation in Limerick“: Martin Eiger, the Limerick laureate, points to a Technology Review article about the new Guinness Stout beer bubble study. Tech Review notes that the study authors, who are mathematicians at the University of Limerick, and opens with this headline: “Mathematicians Reinvent The Beer Widget […]

Beer bubble appreciation in Limerick

To celebrate St. Patrick’s day in style (at least a certain kind of style, heavily influence by a love of physics), one can savor and digest these two studies about the properties of bubbles in Guinness Beer. (Thanks to investigators Tatiana Divens and Stanislav Volkov for bringing them to our attention.) “Bubble nucleation in stout […]