A Brief History of Drop Formation

Surface-tension-related phenomena have fascinated researchers for a long time, and the mathematical description pioneered by Young and Laplace opened the door to their systematic study. The time scale on which surface-tension-driven motion takes place is usually quite short, making experimental investigation quite demanding. Accordingly, most theoretical and experimental work has focused on static phenomena, and in particular the measurement of surface tension, by physicists like Eötvös, Lenard, and Bohr. Here we will review some of the work that has eventually lead to a closer scrutiny of time-dependent flows, highly nonlinear in nature. Often this motion is self-similar in nature, such that it can in fact be mapped onto a pseudo-stationary problem, amenable to mathematical analysis.