THE STABILITY OF GAS BUBBLES IN LIQUID‐GAS SOLUTIONS *

A study has been made of the conditions under which a single gas bubble is in equilibrium within a closed volume of liquid that is maintained at constant pressure and temperature. It is predicted that, depending upon the amount of gas present in the closed volume, there may be no equilibrium state, one equilibrium state, or two equilibrium states for the bubble. For the case where one equilibrium state is predicted, it is also shown that a bubble in such a state is stable against growth yet unstable against dissolution. Where two equilibrium states are possible, it is predicted that the state corresponding to the smaller bubble size is in unstable equilibrium and the state