How many licks to the centre of a lollipop?
Shape dynamics and scaling laws for a body dissolving in fluid flow
A paper about how things dissolve in flowing water, which the authors happily admit was really about lollipops.
Mathematicians at NYU dissolved candy shapes in flowing water and found that, whatever shape they start as, they wear down into the same smooth form before vanishing.
Their model also answers an old question: roughly how many licks to the centre of a lollipop. About a thousand, for a typical one.
The world may finally know. (~1,000.)