  "The Life of a Free Soap Film" is a fluid dynamics video for the Gallery of
Fluid Motion intended to showcase the novel experimental techniques that we
have developed in our laboratory to study the retraction of planar liquid films
of various shapes and sizes as well as other film properties not accessible
before. Unlike previous experimental studies that have used rupture to initiate
the retraction of a liquid film from a point, we can produce the uniform
release of a soap film along a straight edge up to many centimeters in length
and capture the subsequent retraction of the film and details concerning the
development of the edge using high speed photography. This video only hints at
the astonishing life of a "free" soap films.
