Whip up a froth

摘要

Why do foams make shaving easier, cushions squishier, firefighting safer, wound repair quicker and drug production cheaper? What is an aerogel and why does it hold world records for 14 different physical properties? Sidney Perkowitz has the answers to these and many other foam puzzles in Universal Foam. So what exactly is a foam? Well, essentially it's a foam as an assembly of bubbles, or "cells", in which the cell walls are made of a solid or a liquid and the centre of each cell is full of gas. This is straightforward, but delving a little deeper leads to unexpected complexities.