Evaporation drives convection within a thin film of soap, where the combination of iridescence and fluid dynamics exemplify the beauty of physics. It’s a mini drama in three parts, tidy layers tangling into a Rorschach test of chaotic squiggles.
All three images were submitted to the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics image gallery as Evaporatively-Driven Convection in a Draining Soap Film I, II, and III. No other caption was provided. The longer I stare at the last image in the sequence, the more I see Cthulhu emerging from the orderly linear lower layers, reaching up into the blank void-space of evaporating soap.
Photography credit: Skotheim & Bush
