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The pop of a champagne cork turns out to have something in common with a rocket launcher, according to a recent paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids. Scientists from France and India used computer simulations to reveal what happens in the microseconds after uncorking a bottle of champagne in full detail. They discovered that in the first millisecond after the cork pops, the ejected gas forms different types of shockwaves—even reaching supersonic speeds—before the bubbly settles down and is ready to imbibe.
"Our paper unravels the unexpected and beautiful flow patterns that are hidden right under our nose each time a bottle of bubbly is uncorked," said co-author Gérard Liger-Belair of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne. "Who could have imagined the complex and aesthetic phenomena hidden behind such a common situation experienced by any one of us?"
Liger-Belair could imagine it, for one. He has been studying the physics of champagne for years and is the author of Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. He has gleaned numerous insights into the underlying physics by subjecting champagne to laser tomography, infrared imaging, high-speed video imaging, and mathematical modeling, among other methods.
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