Monday, December 12, 2016

Bouncing soap bubbles

My wife and I are often looking for new science demonstrations to do with children. The latest one she found was "bouncing soap bubbles".



For reasons of convenience [laziness?] we actually bought the kit from Steve Spangler.
It is pretty cool.

A couple of interesting scientific questions are:

Why do the gloves help?

The claim is that the grease on your hands makes bursting the bubbles easier.

Why does glycerin make the soap bubbles stronger?

Why does "ageing" the soap solution for 24 hours lead to stronger bubbles?

Journal of Chemical Education is often a source of good ideas and science discussions. Here are two relevant articles.

Clean Chemistry: Entertaining and Educational Activities with Soap Bubbles 
Kathryn R. Williams

Soap Films and the Joy of Bubbles
Mary E. Saecker

1 comment:

  1. Glycerine has humectant properties. This means glycerine absorbs moisture. Then a detailed explanation is given on how glycerine prevent evaporation of moisture in surface of a soap film here in this web site which probably answers the query on glycerine making soap bubbled stronger.

    http://soapbubble.dk/english/science/glycerin-in-soap-bubble-mixtures/

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