science! (of sweetening one's tea and coffee)

 Ever since I was a young person, I have believed that how I stir sugar into my coffee is faster than how most people stir sugar into their coffee, all other things being equal.  It's a casual idiosyncrasy, I haven't talked much about it, I must have thousands.  I felt it was self-evident once explained, but I never really looked into it.  If I investigated every trivial thing like that, I'd never get anything else done. ;D

 I was today years old when I looked in google scholar a bit, learned what the experts call things and which fields of study were most applicable.  There were plenty of hits and what really shut me down was a very old Royal Society paper that came up; this (stirring and particle dissolution efficiency) is not a new field of study.

 And it turns out that yes, I'm right... and it was well-understood a century ago. >_<

 Okay, okay, I'll stop teasing... but I think reviewing the basic theory is actually a good idea;

 If a soluble particle sits in a solute and starts to dissolve without moving at all, a zone of higher concentration (of the particle in the solute) will build up around the particle, and slow down dissolution.  Right.  That's why we stir.  If there is motion between fluid and particle, that zone gets swept away, exposing the particle to fresh, low-concentration solute. 

The greater the relative motion, the faster the particle is dissolved.

 It should be further evident that particles entrained by a flow will have lower relative velocity than particles in chaotic or constantly reversing flow.

 And so, instead of stirring one's spoon in a constant circular motion, reverse the motion of your spoon every 180º.  This appears to create more chaotic flow than moving it back and forth linearly, too.

 That's it, that's all I got today, I think.  Science so easy a child could do it and almost certainly has.
I wish there was a master index of all Science Fair™ projects ever. ;)

Going through a bit of a rough patch right now, not working in the shop very much.

~≈{👁}≈~