Question: How do you get students interested in one of the admittedly drier areas of science, namely the mathematical Law of Exponential Decay?
Answer: Make it about beer of course.
Determined to convince students of the merits of using experimental data to check the consistency of theoretical models, German researcher Amd Leike from the Ludwig Maximilians University, poured himself a generous glass of beer (three in fact) and waited… not for inspiration, but for the froth on top to disappear.
While others may have been tempted to down the experiment, Leike carefully measured the height of the froth every few seconds for a total of six minutes with what can only be described as a researcher’s thirst for knowledge. Applying a chi-squared test to the results, he proved that, just as he suspected, beer froth does indeed obey the mathematical Law of Exponential Decay – ‘the longer you leave beer resting in a glass, the slower the froth disappears’ to you and me.
There’s something you can amaze your friends with the next time you’re indulging in a little drunken banter down the pub. It might not win you an Ig Nobel Prize in Physics as it did for Leike in 2002, but it might make that last pint stretch until chucking-out time.
