SCIENCE: Milk or Sugar in Your Low-Viscosity-Liquid Dynamic? Scientists Seek the Perfect Cup of Coffee.

In recent papers they have examined the quantum mechanics of caffeine, the thermal properties of stovetop coffee-maker steam, the capillary action of the “coffee ring effect” and the low-viscosity-liquid dynamics of hot coffee. Some insist that aroma is the secret, others argue it is all about the ions in the water. One group of researchers attempted to calculate how long it would take to heat a pot of coffee by yelling at it.

Alfred Renyi, a Hungarian academic famous for both his love of coffee and his contributions to probability theory, once said, “A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.” A 2011 study by Dunkin’ Donuts and CareerBuilder concluded that U.S. scientists and lab technicians are the heaviest coffee drinkers in the country.

What’s surprising about this effort to crack the coffee mystery is how resistant coffee seems to being cracked.

“It is the most challenging example of applied chemistry I have come across,” said computational chemist Christopher Hendon at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who recently co-wrote a 134-page treatise on the effects of water chemistry on coffee. “There are a lot of variables that go into solving the perfect cup of coffee.”

Perfection can wait until after that first cup, strong and with just enough cream that you don’t have to wait before gulping it down.