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Science 17 March 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5460, pp. 1910 - 1912
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5460.1910a
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MATHEMATICS:
Why Double Bubbles Form the Way They Do

Barry Cipra

An international team of mathematicians has announced a proof of the "double bubble" conjecture, which states that when two soap bubbles come together, they form a double bubble in order to enclose the total volume with the minimum surface area. By honing a new technique for analyzing the stability of competing shapes, the team has shown that only the standard shape is truly minimal--any other, supposedly area-minimizing shape can be ever so slightly twisted into a shape with even less area, a contradiction that rules out these other candidates.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)