Question: Why are bubbles spheres?

Sarah-Jane Walsh answered on 19 Jun 2013:

That is an awesome question!!

Now let me try to explain it….

Its all to do with surface tension and surface area. A bubble always tries to take up the smallest amount of space and hold the most air that it possibly can. And because a sphere has the lowest possible surface area of any shape it will always form that shape.

You can compare it to a balloon, when you blow up the balloon gas inside the balloon forces equal pressure in all directions forming a round shape, unless of course you have a funny shape balloon, but that’s another story.

Do you understand? This website has a little app which shows how a circle has the lowest surface area http://simscience.org/membranes/advanced/essay/why_bubbles_round1.html