Why do champagne bubbles grow as they rise?

Champagne is supersaturated with dissolved CO2. As a bubble nucleates at a glass-wall imperfection, CO2 diffuses across its surface into the gas pocket, so the radius grows roughly linearly with time as it travels up the flute.

Why do bubbles rise faster as they get bigger?

For the small Reynolds numbers of champagne bubbles, Stokes' law applies: rise speed scales with the square of the radius, so a bubble that has grown even slightly moves up noticeably faster than a freshly nucleated one.

Why does champagne go flat over time?

Dissolved CO2 escapes continuously, following roughly exponential decay. Warmer temperatures speed this degassing up, which is why the nucleation rate and fizz both fade faster in a glass left to warm.

Home▸Fluid Dynamics & Aerodynamics▸Champagne Bubbles: Nucleation, Growth & Stokes Rise (2D)

Champagne Bubbles: Nucleation, Growth & Stokes Rise (2D)

2D champagne-bubble lab: bubbles nucleate at glass-wall imperfections, grow via CO2 diffusion, and rise under Stokes' law while dissolved CO2 degasses exponentially over time.

Fluid Dynamics & Aerodynamics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion strips the flute down to a side-on cross-section so the underlying bubble physics reads clearly: bubbles nucleate at fixed sites along the glass wall, grow at a controllable diffusion rate as CO2 crosses into them, and rise at a Stokes-law speed that scales with the square of their radius, while a live readout tracks active bubble count, average radius, average rise speed, cumulative CO2 lost and how many bubbles have burst at the surface.

⚙ Under the hood

2D champagne-bubble lab: Stokes-law rise speed, diffusion-limited bubble growth and exponential CO2 degassing, driven by nucleation-rate, viscosity, growth-rate and temperature sliders.

fluid dynamicsbuoyancybubble risingstokes lawnucleationdegassing

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install