ULTIMATE FOAM: IT IS THE MAGIC BUBBLE

Although the majority of the glorious city of Dublin certainly believe that the foam is ideal - it is one that covers a mug of beer icy hot during the day, local scientists have in this respect the dissenting opinion.

From the perspective of a group of researchers from Trinity College, headed by Dennis Weir (Denis Weaire), the ideal foam - is the one in which the bubbles are ... Even in the 19th century Belgian scientist Joseph Plateau has calculated that three of the bubble walls are found at 120 °, form a mechanically stable system. With their combination of film, separating them, form a triangular column of fluid, called the Plateau -Gibbs channel. Since the walls of the bubbles should be the same, then converge at one point four channels of the Plateau -Gibbs, forming an angle between 109 ° 28 '. Using the rules of the Plateau, it is possible to predict the most likely form foam cells - pentagonal dodecahedron. However, to match the ... The task of partitioning the space into regions of equal volume with minimal surface area was named ... He calculated that the ... In addition, the faces of these figures should be slightly curved to better meet the rules of the Plateau. The solution of the Kelvin has long been considered the best, although no formal evidence of this was not. In 1994, Weir and his colleague Robert Phelan (Robert Phelan) came up with the structure, surface area was 0.3 % lower than the decomposition of the same amount of space in the shape of Kelvin. However, despite the fact that the resulting computer model looked very convincing experiments with real detergent and did not allow foam to the ... Meanwhile, Chinese builders under the strict guidance of Australian architect Karfre Tristram (Tristram Carfrae) collected Phelan foam Ware - hand. The result of their labor - the Beijing National Swimming Complex «Water Cube» - took the summer Olympic Games in 2008. But the desire to find the ... Ruggero Gabbrielli (Ruggero Gabbrielli) from the University of Trento decided to force the foam to the formation of structures Ware, Phelan, enclosing it in a container with walls of the corresponding form. Together, the researchers were able not only to produce the desired configuration of a plastic container, and fill it with the same bubbles of suitable size. As a result, about fifteen hundred vesicles lined up in six layers of ... The experimental results are being published in Philosophical Magazine Letters.