Cool thermal oscillations boiling a thin film of detergent and water.
I wonder what causes it...
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@tfardet I think it definitely has something to do with phase change cooling.
The amount of water I had in the pan was very thin in this case though (I wasn't paying attention and it nearly evaporated dry!), so I don't think there is any convective movement for cool water to go to the bottom.
My guess would be that temperature gradients on the frypan probably play a role. Maybe as the pan cools as the water boils off, but the heat from the hot section rushes in to the cool areas, and that causes an oscillation
@SeaJay very naive hypothesis: isn't it just that the area with the phase change dissipates a lot more so if heating is almost homogeneous, as you heat a little more a the center, it start boiling there but then the phase-change cooling is stronger and stops boiling as the "cooler" water goes to the bottom while the periphery starts boiling?
Once it starts, I imagine it should be self sustaining.
So driver could be homogeneous heating at a power below the cooling power of the phase change?