No word yet on the psychology behind the pineapple and ham topping combination. From EurekAlert:
Monash University scientists have unlocked the physics of the perfect pizza toss and will use it to design the next generation of micro motors thinner that a human hair.
Mr Daniel (Kuang-Chen) Liu, a PhD student supervised by Associate Professor James Friend and Senior Lecturer Leslie Yeo, videotaped a professional pizza tosser at work. The team from Monash's Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory, then calculated how best to describe the way the dough travels through the air – including how much the dough rotates, how quickly it spins, its stability and the energy efficiency of the toss itself.
The result is a set of nonlinear differential equations that captures the art of pizza tossing.
"In brief, if you toss a pizza dough one toss at a time – that is, if you toss then catch – your hands should move in a helical fashion, like they are moving along a spiral, a curved line laid along a cylinder," Associate Professor Friend said.
"If you are tossing the pizza continuously, not stopping to catch it and stop every time, then your hands should move in circles."
The model could help researchers to design the next generation of standing wave ultrasonic motors (SWUMs), which operate on similar principles as pizza tossing.
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