Champagne Bubbles: Nucleation Site Chemistry

This is a side-view cross-section of a champagne flute, modeling why real bubbles rise from fixed points instead of forming randomly throughout the liquid. Dissolved CO₂ and temperature set the supersaturation pressure ΔP and the critical nucleation radius r* via classical nucleation theory; every fiber or scratch defect on the glass wall is scored against r* to decide whether it can nucleate bubbles at all, and how often. Bubbles that do form grow by real CO₂ diffusion as they climb, accelerating under Stokes drag. Adjust CO₂ content, temperature, defect density and wall roughness to see the nucleation sites switch on and off, click the glass to etch your own scratch, and drag/scroll to pan and zoom the flute.