Physics and Physicists: “Sticky physics of joy: On the dissolution of spherical candies”

From the paper’s abstract

Assuming a constant mass-decrease per unit-surface and -time we provide a very simplistic model for the dissolution process of spherical candies. The aim is to investigate the quantitative behavior of the dissolution process throughout the act of eating the candy.

The first commenter grabbed the “low-hanging fruit” response:

Blaise Pascal said…
It appears that this is the right paper (or at least, the right researchers) to answer the important question in this field:

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

Previous published experimental trials yielded an answer of 3 (W. Owl, 1970), but I believe the experimental protocol was flawed.

No eror bars on that result, either.