Nature tries to minimize the surface area of a soap film through the action of surface tension. The process can be understood mathematically by using differential geometry, complex analysis, and the calculus of variations. This book employs ingredients from each of these subjects to tell the mathematical story of soap films. The text is fully self-contained, bringing together a mixture of types of mathematics along with a bit of the physics that underlies the subject. The development is primarily from first principles, requiring no advanced background material from either mathematics or physics. Through the Maple applications, the reader is given tools for creating the shapes that are being studied. Thus, you can "see" a fluid rising up an inclined plane, create minimal surfaces from complex variables data, and investigate the "true" shape of a balloon. Oprea also includes descriptions of experiments and photographs that let you see real soap films on wire frames. The theory of minimal surfaces is a beautiful subject, which naturally introduces the reader to fascinating, yet accessible, topics in mathematics. Oprea's presentation is rich with examples, explanations, and applications. It would make an excellent text for a senior seminar or for independent study by upper-division mathematics or science majors.

Many of us have been fascinated as children by soap bubbles and soap films. Their shapes and colours are beautiful and they are great fun to pay with. With no les intensity, scientists and mathematicians have been interested in the properties of bubbles and films throughout scientific history. In this book David Lovett describes the properties of soap films and soap bubbles. He then uses their properties to illustrate and elucidate a wide range of physical principles and scientific phenomena in a way that unifies different concepts. The book will appeal not only to students and teachers at school and university but also to readers with a general scientific interest and to researchers studying soap films. For the most part simple school mathematics is used. Sections containing more advanced mathematics have been placed in boxes or appendices and can be omitted by readers without the appropriate mathematical background. The text is supported with * Over 100 diagrams and photgraphs. * Details of practical experiments that can be performed using simple household materials. * Computer programs that draw some of the more complicated figures or animate sequences of soap film configurations. * A bibliography for readers wishing to delve further into the subject. David Lovett is a lecturer in physics at the University of Essex. His research interests include Langmiur-Blodgett thin films and the use of models as teaching aids in physics. He has been interested in soap films since 1978 and has made a number of original contributions to the subject, particularly in the use of models which change their dimensions and their analogy with phase transitions. He has published three other books including ITensor Properties of Crystals (Institute of Physics Publishing 1989). John Tilley is also a lecturer in physics at the University of Essex with research interests in theoretical solid-state physics and soap films. He is coauthor of Superfluidity and Superc

Nature tries to minimize the surface area of a soap film through the action of surface tension. The process can be understood mathematically by using differential geometry, complex analysis, and the calculus of variations. This book employs ingredients from each of these subjects to tell the mathematical story of soap films. The text is fully self-contained, bringing together a mixture of types of mathematics along with a bit of the physics that underlies the subject. The development is primarily from first principles, requiring no advanced background material from either mathematics or physics. Through the Maple applications, the reader is given tools for creating the shapes that are being studied. Thus, you can "see" a fluid rising up an inclined plane, create minimal surfaces from complex variables data, and investigate the "true" shape of a balloon. Oprea also includes descriptions of experiments and photographs that let you see real soap films on wire frames. The theory of minimal surfaces is a beautiful subject, which naturally introduces the reader to fascinating, yet accessible, topics in mathematics. Oprea's presentation is rich with examples, explanations, and applications. It would make an excellent text for a senior seminar or for independent study by upper-division mathematics or science majors.

Geometric Measure Theory: A Beginner's Guide provides information pertinent to the development of geometric measure theory. This book presents a few fundamental arguments and a superficial discussion of the regularity theory. Organized into 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the purpose and fundamental concepts of geometric measure theory. This text then provides the measure-theoretic foundation, including the definition of Hausdorff measure and covering theory. Other chapters consider the m-dimensional surfaces of geometric measure theory called rectifiable sets and introduce the two basic tools of the regularity theory of area-minimizing surfaces. This book discusses as well the fundamental theorem of geometric measure theory, which guarantees solutions to a wide class of variational problems in general dimensions. The final chapter deals with the basic methods of geometry and analysis in a generality that embraces manifold applications. This book is a valuable resource for graduate students, mathematicians, and research workers.

Superb treatment of molecular and macroscopic properties of soap films and bubbles, emphasizing solutions of physical problems. Over 120 black-and-white illustrations, 41 color photographs.

The first book to explain mathematics using 3D printed models. Winner of the Technical Text of the Washington Publishers Wouldn’t it be great to experience three-dimensional ideas in three dimensions? In this book—the first of its kind—mathematician and mathematical artist Henry Segerman takes readers on a fascinating tour of two-, three-, and four-dimensional mathematics, exploring Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries, symmetry, knots, tilings, and soap films. Visualizing Mathematics with 3D Printing includes more than 100 color photographs of 3D printed models. Readers can take the book’s insights to a new level by visiting its sister website, 3dprintmath.com, which features virtual three-dimensional versions of the models for readers to explore. These models can also be ordered online or downloaded to print on a 3D printer. Combining the strengths of book and website, this volume pulls higher geometry and topology out of the realm of the abstract and puts it into the hands of anyone fascinated by mathematical relationships of shape. With the book in one hand and a 3D printed model in the other, readers can find deeper meaning while holding a hyperbolic honeycomb, touching the twists of a torus knot, or caressing the curves of a Klein quartic.

The problem of finding minimal surfaces, i. e. of finding the surface of least area among those bounded by a given curve, was one of the first considered after the foundation of the calculus of variations, and is one which received a satis factory solution only in recent years. Called the problem of Plateau, after the blind physicist who did beautiful experiments with soap films and bubbles, it has resisted the efforts of many mathematicians for more than a century. It was only in the thirties that a solution was given to the problem of Plateau in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, with the papers of Douglas [DJ] and Rado [R T1, 2]. The methods of Douglas and Rado were developed and extended in 3-dimensions by several authors, but none of the results was shown to hold even for minimal hypersurfaces in higher dimension, let alone surfaces of higher dimension and codimension. It was not until thirty years later that the problem of Plateau was successfully attacked in its full generality, by several authors using measure-theoretic methods; in particular see De Giorgi [DG1, 2, 4, 5], Reifenberg [RE], Federer and Fleming [FF] and Almgren [AF1, 2]. Federer and Fleming defined a k-dimensional surface in IR" as a k-current, i. e. a continuous linear functional on k-forms. Their method is treated in full detail in the splendid book of Federer [FH 1].