Home EntertainmentMusic The Actual Mathematics of Popping Champagne Corks

The Actual Mathematics of Popping Champagne Corks

by admin



Thanks to Helen Czerski for making the video with me!
https://www.helenczerski.net/

Helen is physicist, oceanographer and broadcaster in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London.

You should check out her book Storm in a Teacup.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393248968?_encoding=UTF8&tag=stanupmath-20

Watch the Helmholtz equation working out on my second channel:
https://youtu.be/shwddzmF-vQ

If you need a gif of the champagne cork popping you can download this one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvf9dfyg06r3m7t/champagne-gif.gif?dl=0

Previously I used a spectrogram app to measure how fast a fidget spinner can move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWCAlJ1vsqc

I use the SpectrumView app, but there are loads of spectrogram apps out there.
http://www.oxfordwaveresearch.com/products/spectrumviewapp/

CORRECTIONS
– There is a five-second audio glitch at 10:30 and a second at 15:31 when some wild reverb appears.
– At 16:02 I got the “tempurature” spelling wrong! First spotted by planetsoccer99.
– Let me know if you spot any other mistakes!

Thanks to my Patreon supporters who made this possible. Here is a random subset:

Sebastian Lykke Hansen
Simon Hutchings
Facundo Gonçalves Borrega
Jarrad Huby
Paul Bates

Support my channel and I can make more videos:
https://www.patreon.com/standupmaths

Music by Howard Carter
Filming and editing by Trunkman Productions
Design by Simon Wright

MATT PARKER: Stand-up Mathematician
Website: http://standupmaths.com/
Maths book: http://makeanddo4D.com/
Nerdy maths toys: http://mathsgear.co.uk/

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26 comments

@steabert November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Any self-respecting researcher would put on safety goggles for those experiments, especially after warning about the consequences of a cork hitting your eye 😂

@SkillTimO November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

12:51 You try telling that to a musician. A 1% difference in frequency and you're out of tune. Your maths equates to a 3% difference and the experiment equates to a 7% difference in frequency. Implying that you know if the difference is audible is not correct. I'm reminded of a video @SteveMould did for @TomScottGo

@FreeGroup22 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

the physics* not mathematics

@chrisengland5523 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

One question that went unanswered in this highly academic experiment is what happens to all the Champagne afterwards?

@EliasMheart November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Helen distracting him right while opening the champagne was just unfortunate timing xD

@bestcreations4703 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

I love seeing all of these different researchers on this channel and how diverse they are. Its great to see how far science is coming and how many people are involved doing fantastic research.

@goswinvonbrederlow6602 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Doesn't the temperature of the compressed gas change as it expands?

@insouciantFox November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Now get someone with perfect pitch and compare.

@PlanetEchelone November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

"it's just noise at those frequencies…" Good one Matt

@tomasvil November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

7:36 the bottle was listening to the anecdote and wanted to add sound effects to it 😂😂😂

@georghager8678 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

In the scope picture of the popping sound one can see that the wave is "amplitude modulated" – and one can also see this in the Fourier spectrum since there is a "sideband" to the left of the main peak. I find that interesting – why is there such a modulation, and why is it asymmetric in the spectrum? It almost looks as if it's not a modulation of the amplitude (which would show up as symmetric sidebands to the left and right of the peak) but a separate oscillation that just happens to be a tiny bit slower than the dominant one.

@רפאל-ב November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

7:40 perfect timing!!!

@Contrapunctus1984 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

NOTHING BURGER!!!

@hewitt7615 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

I thought the pressure doesn’t increase? Like in a bottle of fizzy drink

@digitig November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Many years ago, I was inviolved in he factory acceptance tests for a multi-million pound contract for many safety-critical electronic systens, The final test on the final piece of equpment was supposed to be in an environmental test chamber at something like -20C. I objected that the chamber was set to +2C, but the (French) contractor pointed out that -20C would spoil the champagne that was in the chamber with the equipment under test.

Based on the fact that every other piece of identical kit that had been subjected to correct testing had passed, we decided that the sampling was adequate, and joined the contractor in drinking the champagne.

That was something like 30 years ago, and the equipment performed just fine, so I'm happy we made the right call.

@skilledcasual9443 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Champagned maths

@artemageev4226 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

7:308:00 – absolutely hilarious

@TheAlison1456 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

18:20 i appreciate how the graph colors are and labels are in RGB order.

@CookiesFTA November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Having just watched your fidget spinner video, I'm now going to extrapolate wildly and declare that everything travels at 55 km/h

@w1swh1 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

But the critical question is…….who got to drink the champagne??? 😊😊😊

@GuidoHaverkort November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

7:45 accurate representation of me in bed

@emilyrln November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Matt: "So if you knew the speed of sound, you could calculate pi from this."
Also Matt: "I'm actually going to squeeze the tau back into the bottle, so it'll be fine."

@sergejnekrasov7688 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Although to be fair: The ratio between 637 Hz and 695 Hz is greater than the twelth root of 2, which is the ratio between two semitones on the piano. A person with perfect pitch (or a piano) could hear the difference…

@sergejnekrasov7688 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

Hey Matt, will this be the way you calculate Pi in a week?

@MyFavouriteExperiments November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

For the maths around ten minutes in, it looks like 343 m/s was used for the speed of sound, but wouldn't the gas in the closed bottle be mainly carbon dioxide? (So the speed of sound would be expected closer to 270 m/s?)

@lopata_of_death6894 November 8, 2024 - 2:27 pm

well, the difference really is small if you compare it to the difference between octaves, but to say that you "wouldn't hear a difference" is inaccurate, because an 11 Hz difference is definitely audible, some people can hear and distinguish different notes as few as 2 Hz away from each other.

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