Most beer drinkers have begrudgingly watched their cherished amber ale spill uncontrollably out of the bottle after an unwelcome knock as part of a party trick — Science hasn't figured a way to stop it from happening but can reveal why it occurs.

Researchers from Spain and France have discovered that cavitation is the mechanism that causes bubbles to appear in liquid, like beer, after an impact, the Daily Mail reports.

Lead researcher Javier Rodriguez-Rodriguez, of Carlos III University in Spain, explained that a bump against the bottle's mouth causes a back and forth movement of compression and expansion waves that cause bubbles to appear and then rapidly collapse.

The team's experiments showed that cavitation-induced "mother bubbles" in beer create clouds of carbonic gas "daughter bubbles" which grow and expand faster than the mothers they branched off from.

The daughter bubbles' rapid expansion gives the foam buoyancy.

Dr Rodriguez said the buoyancy "leads to the formation of plumes full of bubbles, whose shape resembles very much the mushrooms seen after powerful explosions."

"And here is what really makes the formation of foam so explosive: the larger the bubbles get, the faster they rise, and the other way around."

The doctor said the findings had implications beyond beer, such as in engineering.

Source: Daily Mail

Author: Martin Zavan, Approving editor: Nick Pearson

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