Re: superheated drink (was: How to explain this?)

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Arnulfo Castellanos Moreno wrote:

> Dissolving salt in a cold beer you get the same phenomenon.

Yes.

> Why is it superheating?

The beer isn't superheated, but it is supersaturated
with CO2.

The physics of nucleation is the same in either case.

It's a good lesson in scaling laws.  This is physics!
Some guy named Galilei had something to say about
scaling laws.  Also some guy named Ken Wilson.

Surface energy goes like -R^2.
Volume energy goes like  +R^3.
Small bubbled get crushed.  Large bubbles grow.

A deep scratch or pit changes the geometry, allowing
the gas phase to make a lot of volume before it has
to make a lot of surface.  That's the basic story
of inhomogenous nucleation.

There are also connections to sonoluminescence.
Also possible connections to the dynamics of the
very early universe.