Hidden Wonders

Preface ................................................................................... vi
I. BUILDERS ...........................................................1
The Elegance of Small and Slender Things................................2
Azay-le-Rideau or Roofs of Beauty........................................... 10
The Eiffel Tower......................................................................... 18
Inner Balance..............................................................................26
Surface Tension ..........................................................................34
II. CREATING SHAPES.............................43
And We Think of Bubbles as Fragile!.......................................44
The Tragedy of Foam .................................................................52
Necklaces and Catenaries..........................................................60
Elegant Stone Arches.................................................................68
Shells and Mille-Feuilles ........................................................ 76
III. BUILDING WITH THREAD ........85
An Eight-Legged Builder..........................................................86
Wet Hair.....................................................................................94
Birds as Architects ...................................................................104
An Impressive Bridge of Grasses..............................................114
Folders and Tailors: Masters of Volume.................................. 122
Weaving and Braiding ............................................................. 132
Folding and Crumpling Paper Balls........................................ 142
IV. FROM SAND TO GLASS............... 153
Seeing a World in a Grain of Sand.......................................... 154
The Secret of Sandcastles......................................................... 162
Earthen

Étienne Guyon is Emeritus Professor at ESPCI (Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution), a fellow of the American Physical society and of the Institute of Physics, Honorary Director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and coauthor of Built on Sand: The Science of Granular Materials (MIT Press). José Bico is Associate Professor at ESPCI-PSL (Paris Science Lettres Université). Etienne Reyssat and Benoît Roman are CNRS researchers. All authors work at PMMH (Physics and Mechanics of Heterogenous Media) lab of ESPCI-PSL in Sorbonne Université.

"Hidden Wonders fills a major gap in popular science books. Guyon and co-authors convey to their readers a modern and interdisciplinary approach to physics in a style rarely seen in the genre with special homage to recent developments in soft-matter physics and engineering sciences. Their effort is much needed, and we scientists should look to inspire the next generation, because there are still plenty of mysteries and wonders to be discovered."  Marcelo A. Dias, Nature Physics