Thu March 10th 2011
16:00
HR Z109
Journal Club "Soap has memory” or “Hysteretic behaviour in 3D soap film rearrangements” to appear soon in Phys. Rev. E.
Joost Weijs

Details:

A soap bubble is spherical, but a wire frame dipped in soapy water can make other shapes. Joost will show how a film can switch from one shape to another when the wire frame is slowly modified. As predicted, the transition point depends on the starting shape, as if the film "remembered" its past. This simple experiment, is a clear, visual demonstration of a delicately balanced type of equilibrium known as metastability, and it may provide some insights into the way bubbles evolve in solid foams.




Physical Review Focus
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