Monday, April 20, 2015

Bubble Brainstorm



Brody, Pierre, Zach, Max, Jasper and Will experimented with bubbles during a class field trip at the New York Hall of Science. Will's favorite fact he learned about bubbles is that no matter what shape bubble wand you use (e.g. square, star-shaped, triangle) to make a bubble, the bubble always turns out to be a sphere! Why? Bubbles are "minimal surface structures," which means that they always hold the air inside of them with the least possible surface area. A bubble's thin wall of soap is pulling in while the air inside of it is pushing out. The geometric form with the least surface area for any given volume is always a sphere, not a pyramid or a cube or any other form.

Will's classmate Sofia illustrates this fact, at left.

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