The first purpose of uncorking a bottle of wine probably is to have good prospect of culinary pleasure. But if you are a physicist or physics teacher you may have a secondary interest. Couldn’t it be possible to determine the speed of sound just by uncorking the bottle and with a little help from a smartphone? Sure, it is. Here comes the idea.
Most people know well the audible plop noise while opening a wine bottle. So, how is this ‘plop’ actually caused and on what does it depend? Lastly, what information can we obtain from this noise?
The process of uncorking a bottle is characterized by friction between the cork and the inner side of the bottleneck. Furthermore, there is an airflow due to a change of gas pressure. Those effects generate a multi-frequency noise. From an acoustical point of view, the bottleneck with the wine level is a...