text: If you'd like to eat the world's most scientifically perfect pizza, you have two options: One, fly to Rome and order a Margherita pizza fresh from the brick oven; or, two, solve a long thermodynamic equation to simulate that glorious Italian pizza in your pathetic electric oven at home. 
   
   That's the basic premise of a new paper titled "The Physics of Baking Good Pizza," published earlier this year in the preprint journal arXiv. In the mouth-watering study, two physicists (Andrey Varlamov of the Institute of Superconductors, Oxides and Other Innovative Materials and Devices in Rome and Andreas Glatz of Northern Illinois University) and one food anthropologist (Sergio Grasso, an author and filmmaker based in Rome) recall the scientifically unassailable pizzas they sampled while the three were working in Rome. 
   
   Their pie of choice was a simple pizza Margherita — a personal pie of tomato, mozzarella and basil (representing the red, white and green of the Italian flag) — prepped and brick-oven-baked before their eyes by a seasoned "pizzaiolo," which is Italian for "dude who makes pizzas." In 2 minutes flat, the authors watched Rome's pizza artisans transform doughy discs into golden pies "covered with mouth-watering bubbles of cheese," and demanding to be washed down with "a pitcher of good beer." (The physics of what makes a beer "a good beer" are lamentably not addressed in this paper.) [Science You Can Eat: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Food] 
   
   The secret, a proud pizzaiolo informed the authors, was the physics of the brick oven. With a wood fire burning in one corner, heat radiates uniformly through the curved walls and stone floor of the oven, ensuring an even bake on all sides of the pie. Under ideal conditions, the authors wrote, a single pizza Margherita could be baked to perfection in precisely 2 minutes in a brick oven heated to 625 degrees Fahrenheit (330 degrees Celsius). When additional toppings require additional bake time, some pizzaiolos may lift the pie up with a wooden or aluminum spade for an additional 30 seconds or so "in order to expose the pizza to just heat irradiation" and prevent a toasty bottom, the authors wrote. 
   
   Don't own a brick oven at home, because you're a normal person? The authors have helpfully described how to simulate that pizza "a la Roma" perfection in a standard electric oven — with physics! 
   
   If you are baking your pie in an electric oven, chances are your pizza is resting on a metal tray or baking rack. Because the heat conductivity of metal is significantly more powerful than that of brick, the bottom of your pizza will absorb heat much more quickly than the rest of the pie. Baking your dough at 625 degrees F for 2 minutes will therefore turn your pizza "into coal," the authors wrote. And there is no beer good enough to salvage a coal pie. 
   
   Using a long thermodynamic equation (which you can read for yourself in their paper; it's "equation #13"), the authors determined that a pizza cooked in an electric oven could meet similar conditions to a Roman brick oven by turning the heat down to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 170 seconds. Crucially, the authors noted, aspiring pizzaiolos cooking toppings with higher water content (basically, any additional vegetables) may need to leave their pies in the oven longer, as the pizza will return more heat to the oven via evaporation. 
   
   The authors concluded that, while your homemade pizza will probably never be as perfect as a fresh, firebrick pie devoured in front of 1,000 eager pigeons near the Colosseum, physics can help you take a step in the right direction. And, if that's a problem for you, perhaps try making some steamed dumplings instead. The authors have a paper on that too. 
   
   Originally published on Live Science. ||||| Brick ovens have been around for centuries, and for good reason—they produce uniquely spectacular pizzas. Get ready for a brief (and delicious) lesson in physics you'll actually remember! 
   
   meoneil09/Shutterstock 
   
   Who doesn’t love a brick oven pizza with its crispy crust and perfectly baked toppings? (It’s what the best pizza recipes have in common!) 
   
   The only trouble with such a treat is that it’s extremely hard to make at home. We’ll tell you why this is such a daunting task and also how to achieve the closest replica. 
   
   What makes brick oven pizzas special 
   
   Neopolitan-style pizzas are special. The crust is crisp and flecked with tell-tale charred spots, evidence of being baked in an extremely hot oven. The interior of the dough is soft, elastic, tender, and fragrant, and the toppings are cooked to perfection. 
   
   To achieve this perfect pizza, Italian pizza pros rely on brick ovens that typically heat to 700ºF (or more!). This high temperature cooks the pizza fast—we’re talking under two minutes! 
   
   The reason brick ovens can achieve such pizza perfection is due to the thermal conductivity of the bricks, or how efficiently they transfer heat into the dough. When comparing clay (the main component of bricks and your pizza stone) and steel, clay is much more slow to heat something placed on it, and this means that even if two ovens made of each material are heated to the same temperature, the crust in the brick oven won’t get nearly as hot as the crust in a steel oven. Don’t miss these pizza toppings you won’t be able to resist. 
   
   Along those same lines, the toppings in a clay oven have more time to cook before the crust is done; in a steel oven, the crust will be burned at such high temperatures before the cheese is even melted. Brick ovens are ideal because the crust heats at a high but reasonable temperature giving the toppings enough time to properly cook. 
   
   How to make brick oven-style pizza at home 
   
   Without a real brick pizza oven, you won’t be able to get Neopolitan pizza just right, but you can get close! 
   
   Preheat your oven so it’s nice and hot—about 450ºF. 
   
   Pop your pizza on a steel baking tray and let it cook for about 3 minutes. 
   
   Turn your oven up to a broil (500ºF) and heat the pizza until a crisp crust forms—another 5 to 7 minutes. 
   
   This should give you the crisp crust and tasty toppings you’re looking for—and be sure to avoid these basic pizza mistakes. 
   
   Until they start making brick ovens for household use, Italian-style pizza aficionados have two choices: Either find a restaurant turning out authentic brick-oven pizzas or settle for an almost-there homemade version. After all, all pizzas are good pizzas! Next, find out the things your pizza guy isn’t telling you.
target: – Not all scientific research takes place in labs. Just ask food anthropologist Sergio Grasso and physicists Andrey Varlamov and Andreas Glatz, who had the tough job of sampling Margherita pizzas across Rome in the lead up to their paper, "The Physics of Baking Good Pizza." The pizzaiolos of Italy have the process down pat, relying on curved brick ovens heated to 625 degrees Fahrenheit to perfectly bake the pie of tomato, mozzarella, and basil on all sides in two minutes, the authors found. They also learned duplicating this process in your standard electric oven would turn a pizza to "coal" since metal conducts heat much better than brick, reports Live Science. There is a solution, however. Per Particle, the authors developed a mathematical formula to show how a pizza could be baked to near-perfection in an electric oven. They recommend baking a pie at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 170 seconds, or slightly longer if the chosen toppings have a high water content "as the pizza will return more heat to the oven via evaporation," per Live Science. Broiling the top at this point would work, too, per Reader's Digest. While you may not get the even cook of a brick oven—if necessary, pizzaiolos lift the pizza base from the oven while allowing the toppings to continue cooking with radiant heat for about 30 seconds—the pie should be similar to Rome's pizza, the authors say. (Just don't substitute the mozzarella.)