Frank Morgan's work on soap films

Frank Morgan’s work on soap films involves studying the mathematical and physical properties that determine their shapes and stability. Soap films naturally minimize their surface area, creating beautiful and balanced structures. Morgan analyzed how these films form minimal surfaces—shapes that locally minimize area—by applying principles from geometry and calculus. His research helps explain why soap films assume specific configurations and how they respond to changes in boundary conditions, providing insights into optimization problems, materials science, and topological properties of surfaces. His work bridges mathematics and physics, illustrating the elegant ways in which nature solves complex surface minimization challenges.