Objective: Build the Plateau apparatus and duplicate Plateau's experiment with alcohol-water and a neutrally bouyant immiscible castor oil drop, as described in Soap-bubbles and the Forces which Mold Them by C. V. Boys. Discuss the bifurcations described in the papers of Brown and Scriven (The shape and stability of rotating liquid drops. Proc. Roy. Soc. London Ser. A, 371 (1980) no. 1746, 331-357) and Gulliver (Tori of prescribed mean curvature and the rotating drop. Variational methods for equilibrium problems of fluids (Trento, 1983), Asterisque no. 118 (1984) 167-179).
Progress:
Fall 2001 (Birdwell, Nanda, Pruvenok) Were unable to reproduce the results described by Plateau experimentally. Were unable to reproduce the numerical results of Brown and Scriven. Described new experimental behavior.
Summer 2002
The purpose of the experiment is to rotate an oil drop inside ethanol and distilled water solution at a variable speed. The most challenging part of the experiment was to attach the oil drop to the botton of the rotating shaft not to mention the regulation of the rotating speed.
