The amazing bouncing droplet
When a low viscosity oil droplet is laid on the surface of a high viscosity oil liquid, it stays at rest for a moment before coalescencing. The coalescence can be delayed and sometimes inhibited by injecting fresh air under the droplet. This happens when the surface of the bath oscillates vertically. In this case, the droplet basically bounces on the interface. We observe that the conditions for bouncing depends on the frequency, more precisely we observe resonance when the Eigenfrequency of the droplet is excited. Lord Rayleigh expressed the droplet deformation modes in terms of spherical harmonics $Y_{\ell}^m$. We present different experimental modes of deformation with the corresponding spherical harmonic model with $\ell=$2,3,4 and 5. In some conditions, the droplet is excited along a non axi-symmetric mode of deformation ($m \ne 0$). That leads to a rotation of the droplet and to a horizontal displacement.