Month: September 2022

FRAGMENT IN NATURE, a break in our ongoing theme. This time we focus on soap bubbles, a charming subject that has engaged the most serious minds for a long time. This natural phenomenon raises interesting mathematics, and laws of physics. It also gives deep insights into the very mysterious subject of cell membranes. View in LinkedIn

"NEWTON concluded that at their thinnest point, soap bubbles measure 1/2,500,000 of an inch thick, or over 4,000 times thinner than the piece of paper on which these words are printed." http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/bubbles/Bubbles/bubbles.html View in LinkedIn

" "INTRODUCTION TO BUBBLES, with a bubbleologist. The playful side of these fascinating objects. https://lnkd.in/ddjmUqt View in LinkedIn

SOAP BUBBLE WORLD RECORDS. Most people inside soap bubble:193; largest bubble wall: 156 ft; longest soap bubble: 105 ft; largest free floating soap bubble: 20.65 cubic meters; longest lasting soap bubble: 108 days; largest object inside a soap bubble: a truck. https://lnkd.in/di9yQ6x View in LinkedIn

"A SOAP BUBBLE is a very thin sheet of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules. The film of soapy water surrounds a bubble of air. Soap molecules have one end that repels water, and one that attracts it, and these molecules move to the inner and outer surfaces, thrusting their water-repelling ends out into the air, and their "heads" inwards." https://lnkd.in/dAKy6VD View in LinkedIn

CRITICAL MICELLE CONCENTRATION. "When there are too many surfactant molecules for the molecules to be comfortably spaced, they collect in balls called micelles with their water-hating end in the center and the water-loving end on the outside ... As more water is added, there will be a point where there is just enough water so that there will be no more micelles and the surfactant molecules are tightly packed." https://lnkd.in/dYvt3pv View in LinkedIn

GEOMETRY OF SOAP BUBBLES. "If a soap film does not contain any bubbles, it can be called a minimal surface. A minimal surface is characterized by having a total curvature equal to zero in every point. This means that for all points on the surface, if the surface is curving with a certain amount in one direction, at the same point the surface will also have to curve with minus the same amount in the normal direction." https://lnkd.in/dirhQBH View in LinkedIn

MINIMAL SURFACE PROBLEM. "Soap bubbles are physical examples of the complex mathematical problem of minimal surface. They will assume the shape of least surface area possible containing a given volume." https://lnkd.in/d5zN4He View in LinkedIn

"A TRUE MINIMAL SURFACE is more properly illustrated by a soap film, which has equal pressure on inside as outside, hence is a surface with zero mean curvature. A soap bubble is a closed soap film: due to the difference in outside and inside pressure, it is a surface of constant mean curvature." https://lnkd.in/d5zN4He View in LinkedIn

MINIMAL ENERGY. "The spherical shape of a soap bubble nicely displays the principle of energy minimization. Surface tension causes the bubble to form a sphere because this shape, as proposed by Archimedes and proven rigorously by Schwarz in 1884, is the minimal surface enclosing a fixed given volume." https://lnkd.in/dB43fJY View in LinkedIn