Physics & Caffeine: Stop Motion Film Uses a Cup of Coffee to Explain Key Concepts in Physics

Want to teach me physics? Make it inter­est­ing. Bet­ter yet, use a cup of cof­fee as a prop. Now you’ve got my atten­tion.

Cre­at­ed by Char­lotte Arene while intern­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris-Sud’s Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Sol­id State Physics, Physics & Caf­feine uses a shot of espres­so to explain key con­cepts in physics. Why does cof­fee cool off so quick­ly when you blow on it? It comes down to under­stand­ing heat and ther­mo­dy­nam­ics. Why does cof­fee stay in a cup at all? That seem­ing­ly sim­ple ques­tion is explained by quan­tum mechan­ics and even New­ton­ian physics and spe­cial rel­a­tiv­i­ty. You might want to watch that sec­tion twice.

Shot image by image, this stop motion film took three long months to cre­ate. Pret­ty impres­sive when you con­sid­er that 5,000 images went into mak­ing the film.

Get more infor­ma­tion on the film, and even down­load it, from this page. And find more physics primers below.

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via Aeon

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