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Home Science Physics

How soap films solve complex problems – the coolest thing you’ll see this week

Tibi Puiu by Tibi Puiu
March 2, 2015
in Physics, Videos
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Imagine you have four towns, all spaced out in a square grid. What’s the most efficient way to link these towns with a motorway? You might guess anything from a circle, to again a square or two diagonals. Neither of these is the right answer.  The problem involves determining the minimum path length required to link together a set of co-planar points, and is usually described in terms of a set of roads between a set of towns. As it turns out, find the minimum and optimum path between a set of towns is a pretty difficult problem to solve.

A brilliant fellow on YouTube shows an experimental solution to the motorway problem, using soap films, grids and surface tension. If you’re a teacher, use this guide to build your own soap film experiments.

Tibi Puiu

Tibi Puiu

Tibi is a science journalist and co-founder of ZME Science. He writes mainly about emerging tech, physics, climate, and space. In his spare time, Tibi likes to make weird music on his computer and groom felines.

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