Yves Pomeau and Emmanuel Villermaux, in their article “Two Hundred Years of Capillarity Research” (Physics Today, March 2006, page 39), give a comprehensive overview. It is noteworthy, however, that the stability condition mentioned in the section on breakup and fragmentation was known decades before Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau’s 1873 publication cited it. The condition that peristaltic perturbations are naturally unstable if their longitudinal wavelength is larger than the cylinder’s circumference was known to Plateau as early as 1850. 1 His analytical result was quoted by August Beer in 1855. 2 In correspondence with William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), James Clerk Maxwell referred to this limiting condition in 1857. 3 Maxwell’s phrase “it is easy to show” suggests he had derived the result, though it is plausible he also read the earlier discussion by Plateau. Some of these references have been noted much more recently, in conjunction with an investigation of the nonlinear capillary response of liquid cylinders. 4
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January 01 2007
A long history of peristaltic perturbations
Philip L. Marston
Philip L. Marston
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Physics Today 60 (1), 16 (2007);
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Philip L. Marston; A long history of peristaltic perturbations. Physics Today 1 January 2007; 60 (1): 16. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2709539
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