WHY ARE BUBBLES ROUND & SPHERICAL ?

 Bubbles are round because they are lazy.

Yes, you heard me right. Lazy. They don't want to work hard to maintain their shape. They want to minimize their surface area for a given volume of air. And the shape that does that best is a sphere.

A sphere has the smallest surface area per unit volume of any solid. That means less soap film and less surface tension to deal with.

Surface tension is the force that holds the soap film together. It's also the force that tries to make the bubble shrink as much as possible.

The soap film has two sides: one facing the air inside the bubble and one facing the air outside. Both sides have air molecules pushing on them, but the inside has more pressure than the outside. That's because the inside air is trapped and can't escape, while the outside air can move freely.

The difference in pressure creates a net inward force on the soap film. This force is balanced by the surface tension, which acts like a stretched rubber band around the bubble. The surface tension pulls the soap film equally in all directions, making it spherical.

Let's make a bubble that is not round?

Good luck with that👍 You'll need a lot of soap and a lot of skill. And even then, your bubble will try to become round as soon as you let it go.

That's because any shape other than a sphere will have more surface area and more surface tension than a sphere of the same volume. That means more work for the bubble and more instability.

Bubbles are round because they are lazy and want to save energy. Just like some people I know. But don't judge them too harshly. They are also beautiful and fascinating and can teach us a lot about physics and chemistry.