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Physics of Beer (and other Liquids)

Start: End: Location: Lecture Hall Building II, Lecture Hall 1 and 2
Event type:
  • Veranstaltungen
  • Brötchen-und-Borussia
Portrait of Jan Kierfeld © Jan Kierfeld​/​TU Dortmund
Lecture in the series "Brötchen und Borussia" and in the context of the Open Day of the TU Dortmund by Prof. Dr. Jan Kierfeld, Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University

We want to take the theme "Zwischen Brötchen und Borussia" literally and deal with the physics of liquids from breakfast coffee to stadium beer. In particular, we will shed light on the physics surrounding beer foam. Why does beer foam form and what does it actually look like? This turns out to be a physically challenging problem that has been researched for centuries and is still being researched today. To do this, we also need to familiarise ourselves with the surface tension of liquids, which also causes interesting effects in and on liquids in many other places and is also responsible for the shape of soap bubbles, for example. The characteristic shape of coffee stains is also related to this, or the "tears" in a wine or schnapps glass.  

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