Klopsteg Memorial Lecture (August, 1998): Physics at the breakfast table - or waking up to physics

There are many complex phenomena that are so familiar to us that we forget to ask whether or not they are understood. In this lecture, I will discuss several familiar cases of effects that are so ubiquitous that we hardly realize that they defy our normal intuition about why they happen. The examples of poorly understood classical physics that I will choose can all be viewed at a breakfast table. I will mention the long tendrils left behind by honey spooned from one dish to another, the anomalous flow behavior of granular material, and the annoying rings deposited by spilled coffee on a table after the liquid evaporates. These are all nonlinear hydrodynamic phenomena which not only are of technological importance but can also lead the inquisitive into new realms of physics. (C) 1999 American Association of Physics Teachers.