Pancake Physics to Cut Batter Splatter

Anonymous Coward writes "The headline just about says it all on this one. A physics grad student in the UK has come up with the mathematical formula for how to flip a pancake and have it land correctly back in the pan. The BBC has the details."

Comments

Sounds good

[trotski]

But since most of us geeks are pretty inept when it comes to anything physical, I still think my pancakes gonna land on the floor, no matter what formulas I apply.

Now if we could only have some kind of a pancake flipping robot.....

Re:Sounds good

[revmoo]

Now if we could only have some kind of a pancake flipping robot.....

Yes, leave it to geeks to spend thousands of dollars, and countless man-hours developing a machine to flip a pancake over.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the oversized portions.

It's the fact that we're lazy pigs, waddling in our own mess. (Yeah, I'm an American, I'm allowed to say that.)

We sit at desk jobs from nine to five, then drive three blocks home from work in an SUV, and sit on the couch, or in front of the computer. Finally, we go directly to bed. Do not pass Exercise Bike. Do not burn 200 calories.

err

[Geaty]

The angular velocity of the object equals the square root of Pi, times the gravity divided by the distance the pancake is from the elbow times four

hmm . . . I notice that this formula does not factor in mass of the pancake. this makes me wonder, being not-so-smart in physics, would this formula apply for any size pancake?? and how about objects other than pancakes? could I flip say, a thanksgiving turkey and still have it land perfectly in the pan, using this formula??

and why do Scots like cheese in their pancakes?? don't they know the proper way to do anything is the American way, i.e. sugar and syrup??

Bored and tired minds want to know!!

Re:err

[theperplepigg]

Odd, I thought the american way was butter and syrup? Regardless, I'm american, and while I once loved syrup on my pancakes, I now prefer just plain butter/margarine (syrup occasionally, of course). Don't think I ever used sugar and syrup, though. Just seems like overkill to me.

--paul

Waddayamean, Troll!?!?!

[Omni-Cognate]

This is one of the least trollish comments I've read on this thread (though that isn't saying much). This guy just described my life spot on. I'm neither American nor fat, but in both cases I can only thank my parents. There but for the grace of god go I.

Considering this is an article about one of the many traditional annual face-stuffing days westerners celebrate, it's hardly trolling to point out how many people have, or think they have, no time to get any excercise.

Stressed-out, over-fed, under-excercised = early death. The solution is not to diet (=less food, but more stress and still no excercise), but to get plenty of excercise (helps with stress, and you can eat all you like because your body turns it into muscle or motion rather than fat).

In my final year at university, I quit smoking and started swimming just under a mile four times a week. It was the best six months of my life - I was relaxed, I had plenty of energy, muscles even started appearing! Then the exams came along, followed by life as a code-monkey, and here I am smoking, lazy, stressed and eating like a vacuum cleaner. Time to resurrect that lapsed gym membership, I think.

This is what Brits have to say about it

[Nemosoft Unv.]

I asked a (native) British collegue about it, and this was his reply:

Ahh the wonders of pancacke day or as the French call it Mardi Gras Fat tuesday. This is the day before the start of Lent (crazy Christian starvation festival, preparing mind and body for the Easter celebrations etc). Typically people used to use up all their fatty things on this day such as butter, eggs and lard etc, coz it was not the done thing to be eating lard cakes when everybody else was eating celery.

Thus the pancake tradition started. Of course, all the religous nonsense has largely disappeared but the pancakes remain in British Culture.

As far as the tossing equation goes, thats just the work of a whacked out English ale swilling academics, and is an essential part of British inventiveness and ingenuity. (You can't make great discoveries all of the time)

Hope that helps and thank you for your interest in Britain.

:-)

Derivation of the equation

[Redwing]

I have just had a bit of fun trying to derive the given equation. I came up with a result that is very very close.

1) Hang-time of the pancake:

• t=-2V/g

2)Time for a 180 degree flip:

• t=pi* pancakeRadius / (farEdgeVelocity-centerVelocity)

3)Starting spin condition:

• (farEdgeVelocity-centerVelocity)=angularVelocityAr m*pancakeRadius

4) I can substitute equation 3 into 2 to get:

• timeToFlip=pi* pancakeRadius/(angularVelocityArm*pancakeRadius)

5) The pancake radius cancels out!

• timeToFlip=pi/angularVelocityArm

6)Then, I set the two times equal to eachother, because we are looking for the time to flip to be exactly the hang-time:

• pi/angularVelocityArm=-2V/g

7) Solve for angular velocity...

• angularVelocityArm=pi*g/(-2V)

8) The condition at Launch is :

• angularVelocityArm=V / armRadius

9) So, by 7 and 8, (substituting V)..

• angularVelocityArm=pi*g/(-2* armRadius* angularVelocityArm)

10) which is the same as ..

• angularVelocityArm = sqrt ( pi*g/ (-2* armRadius) )

This result is just a clean factor of two off from the article. I'm very suprised that I can put together enough physics to derive something that is apparently so newsworthy!

now someone help me find the mistake!