Smash them violently and revel in the feeling, then feel vaguely ashamed for having reveled quite so much.
8 Likes
If you eschew the violence I previously suggested, spray them with Windex and see if you can pop them apart.
2 Likes
I don’t see anything wrong here. Just pour your coffee into the big cup and enjoy.
5 Likes
It certainly can, I’m very dubious about this being a foregone conclusion or what you’d expect from the 80ish degree differential you’d expect from boiling water to air. Tyroney’s table gives a bit of background about why heating/cooling might not be as helpful as it is for metal (if the coefficient of thermal expansion is low it’ll take a large temperature differential to make enough physical space to free the cups up), but also that would be part of why ceramic isn’t as prone to cracking from thermal stress as say glass.
I wouldn’t drop a hot casserole dish straight from the oven into cold water, or take a bowl out of the deep freeze and drop it in boiling water, but going from room temperature directly to boiling is literally the intended use of ceramic bowls and cups and I’ve done it quite a few times (I sometimes use ceramic bowls as double boilers, so yes, exactly as I’m describing).
4 Likes
Build a time machine.
4 Likes
Let the tyres of the inner cup down.
9 Likes
Exactly what I was going to suggest.
1 Like
Perhaps combine rotation of inner cup along WITH heating the outer cup AND a little olive or vegetable oil.
Also, while someone holds the outer cup and you pull the green cup up have someone tap the rim of the outer cup (down) with a small rubber mallet or any other small but solid, heavy-ish object.
NOTE: I said tap, not hit. Let gravity do most of the work.
Suggest holding outer cup using a dish cloth as a safety measure.
Also, place cloth on rim where you might tap it to reduce chances of damage.
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew - "Here at Muppet Labs, where the future is being made today, we are driven to solving problems just like this one. I can say with authority that I and my assistant Beaker will be able to extract the smaller cup using our newest piece of scientific research equipment, The Slightly Smaller Hadron Collider. This device will be able to shrink the smaller cup ever so slightly and cause it to release itself from the confines of the larger cup, provided that my assistant Beaker not drop it first. "
“Are we ready, Beaker? Yes? Alright then, on the count of three…”
“zap”
“Oh dear, it seems Beaker is now stuck between the two cups”
“Beaker, I told you, on a count of three!”
7 Likes
Spray a dab of WD40 where each cup is in contact. Wait 15 seconds. Pull apart.
OR Put as much ice as can be held in the inside cup. Wait 3 mins for it to properly chill. Place both cups in sink. Fill sink with boiling water up to lip of cup. Should be able to remove internal cup after maybe 30 seconds.
OR
Place both cups in a brown paper bag. Strike several times with a stout hammer. The chips with the green glaze will be the Green cup. You can reassemble the cups with a good glue or just bin them. Congratulations.
2 Likes
Agree with this idea. I’ve seen many barstaff do this when glasses get stuck together.
And obviously the cracking under heat is nonsense 
Beat me to it. Was going to suggest the same thing.
Ah yes, the capitalist free market solution.
You may even get a competitor willing to separate them for a lower price at fair market value
2 Likes
You’ve got an omnidirectional cup now, so it’s hard for me to understand how this is less desirable than two unidirectional cups. You should patent this sucker for use by mountain climbers and ship captains.
In any case, what you’ve got to do is rotate the outer cup so that it’s aligned on a north/south axis, while simultaneously rotating the inner cup to align on the east/west axis. If this works, the cups are probably unstuck.
6 Likes
An invisible hand is still a hand. And what is @frauenfelder asking if not for someone to lend a hand?
4 Likes
It’s simple, all you have to do is … oh what, without breaking them? Never mind.
Would they still be food-safe after that?
- Get a piece of string, thread around the sides of the inner cup, so it goes underneath in the space between the two cups.
- Tie a deflated bicycle tyre innertube to one end of the string, use the string to pull the inner tube so it threads around the inner cup.
- Carefully inflate the innertube.
5 Likes
Lube the cups and tap the rim of the outside one at right angles to the handle axis of the inside cup. Use a light wooden mallet.
The difficulty is that the rim of the outer cup deformed slightly into an oval as a projection of the inner cup slipped by. By tapping in as described, the rim at right angles to the tap will spring out, allowing the projection to slip by, freeing the inner cup.
Well, give the young lady a Monty Phyton Prize.
She not only put One Thing on Top of Another Thing, she put One Thing Inside Another Thing, which is quite meritorious in this day and age.
7 Likes
