Minimal surfaces are surfaces that minimize area. They have the property that their mean curvature is zero everywhere; and are thus a subset of CMC surfaces.

Physical processes which can be modeled by minimal surfaces include the formation of soap films spannig fixed objects, such as wire loops. A soap film is not distorted by air pressure (which is equal on both sides) and is free to minimize its area. This contrasts with a soap bubble, which encloses a fixed quantity of air and has unequal pressures on its inside and outside.

Minimal Surface Topics

• Conformal Mapping
• The Gauss Map
• Stereographic Projection
• The Weierstrass Representation
• The Period Problem
• Minimal Surface Characteristics: Total Curvature, Ends, Genus, etc.
• Associate Families
• Ends

• Minimal Surface Index
• appendices
• Associate Families Index

• The Mesh System
• Mesh Clients Index

• The ^ Minimal Surface library, created using GRAPE at the University of Bonn.
• The ^ Minimal Surfaces page at the ^Geometry Center website gives a description of minimal surfaces in the context of their modelling by software.
• The ^ Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces page at the Mathematics Department of Susquehanna University shows numerous examples of triply periodic minimal surfaces generated using the Brakke Surface Evolver. Evolver files are provided for all examples.
• Matthias Weber's ^ Minimal Surface page provides an illustrated introduction to minimal surfaces. Follow the link on the bottom of this page for information on a variety of minimal surface topics, some not covered here.
• Pascal Romon maintains a ^ Minimal Surface Database organized into the categories people, paper search, places, and images.