Swans on Tea

James Cronen discusses The Physics of Glassware

To put it terribly analytically, a glass is a potential well. When you pour a liquid into a glass and it comes to rest, the molecules don’t have enough total energy to make it out of the bowl of the glass. They stay there until they get enough energy to leave, or the walls around them disappear. This happens by one of three mechanisms.

So this isn’t a discussion of whether glass is a liquid, it’s a physics take on the functionality of glassware. And it’s purely a classical one:

Quantum wine in a potential well might leak out of the sides of the glass due to the process called quantum tunneling. Classical wine has no such problem. More on that some other time.

Some of my glassware is beakers I bought years ago and put on the bar, because the parties my housemates and I threw weren’t geeky enough. I also have roly glasses in case any weebils come over for cocktails (and want to get almost-falling-down drunk)