All images courtesy of Ernie Button.
Thinking about the problem, they concluded
that because whiskey is produced by collecting
the distilled ethers produced from ground-up
grains, it stood to reason that some microscopic particles remain.
“My group knew there were other components in whiskey,” said Stone. “But since the
deposits were fairly uniform, we guessed that it
was something that would stick to a substrate.”
So the researchers added yet another ingredient: tiny polymer molecules.
The scientists didn’t uncover the exact identity of the whiskey molecules; i.e. what they are
made of or how they differ from brew to brew.
But they did confirm that these molecules have
some common characteristic that cause them
to distribute uniformly and stick to a surface as
their carrying liquid evaporates.
What surprised Stone the most was that the
experiments yielded a novel understanding of
alcohol-water mixture evaporation.
better understanding of the discrete role played
by the alcohol-water system and the polymeric
component, is that combination of insights is
new.”
Hearing some of the results of the lab investigation, Button said he was a bit floored that his
seemingly innocuous observation might lead to
some real-world practical applications, such as
better ways to cover larger areas with thin coatings. Some of his images accompanied a presentation Hyoungsoo Kim made on the project at
the November 2014 meeting of the American
Physical Society in San Francisco. A full paper
on the topic is planned, with Button named as a
co-author.
“He was the one who looked at it and said, it’s
pretty and I’ll take pictures of it, but he’s also
the one who said, this is interesting and I want
to investigate it,” Stone said. “I ended up getting contacted, which is lucky for me. But his
is the great insight. That’s a sign of a wonderful
mind.”
“My impression when we started was that
we were pointing out certain features that are
known in evaporating binary liquids,” Stone
said. “My impression now, because we have a
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SciArt in America April 2015