Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

In this talk we shall give a brief introduction to the mathematics of soap films (aka minimal surfaces). These are the surfaces that, amongst all possible surfaces with prescribed boundary, have the least area. If one dips a wire mesh into soap solution, then the surface formed is a minimal surface. We shall see how minimal surfaces arise in science and engineering, look at the physical laws that a minimal surface should obey, and see how much mathematicians understand about them.