maybe the theory is not crazy after all .... if only:

Mike Ciavarella — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:05:50 -0400

If only we consider that the basic mechanism for bubble formation is compression of thin layers, which clearly in rubber and with no asperity makes the slow Schallamach "waves" (or better, fronts) that we have been able to see already with technology of the 1960's. But there is no reason not to admit bubbles can also be generated within asperities of micron scale, at nanometer scale, so that we cannot see them.... Yet! But together, we see their movement. I wish de Gennes were alive, I was supposed to meet him last year in Trieste at a workshop, I cannot tell you how disappointed I was not to have had the chance to meet with him. Now, I could have stepped into his office in Paris and he would have confirmed or disprooved my theory in less than a second.

So this seems to be one case where, as Michel de Montaigne says, "I only took other people's flowers, and all I did was to find the chord to bind them"! So here the idea may not be that crazy, just the natural step forward on the shoulders of giants like Bowden, Tabor, Johnson and ... especially de Gennes!

mciava@lms.polytechnique.fr

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maybe the theory is not crazy after all .... if only: