According to a blog from blogs.zdnet.com, “Researchers at Monash University in Australia have unlocked the physics of the perfect pizza toss and will use it to design the next generation of standing wave ultrasonic motors (SWUMs), devices thinner than a human hair.”

“According to a news release, Mr Daniel (Kuang-Chen) Liu, a PhD student, Associate Professor James Friend, and Senior Lecturer Leslie Yeo, studied a video of professional chefs tossing dough and then calculated a way to best describe the dough’s trajectory–including how much it rotates, how quickly it spins, its stability and the energy efficiency of the toss itself,” reported the blog. “The result is a set of nonlinear differential equations that, in addition to capturing the art of pizza tossing, could help the researchers design optimal standing wave ultrasonic motors (SWUMs), which operate on similar principles as pizza tossing.”