The perfect cup of coffee? – According to Maths

MATHEMATICIANS are a step closer to answering what, for some, is one of life’s most pressing questions – how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Advanced mathematical analysis of a “hideously complicated” set of variables reveals that the size of the coffee grain is critical, followed by a long list of other factors.

The research, carried out by a group from Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry (MACSI) at University of Limerick (UL), is published in SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics this week.

The research was led by Kevin Moroney of UL and co-authored by Dr William Lee, who now leads the industrial mathematics group at the University of Portsmouth, as well as Stephen O’Brien from UL, Johann Marra and Freek Suijver of Philips Research, Eindhoven.