Bubbles by self-proclaimed professionals

Today, a nephew's birthday party afforded the opportunity for the adults to play at bubble making under the guise of entertaining the younger cousins. I graciously volunteered my services as a licensed and trained Colloid and Surfactant Scientist. The kids had the smaller bubble wands while we adult engineers improvised a giant bubble maker with a coat hanger. It was harder than you would expect.

The chief engineer on the project (not me, I was just a consultant) realized that the flatness of the ring in the bubble pan, and a slow withdraw seemed to be the key to getting a soap film out of the tray. Then a steady swing through the air to blow the bubble and you hope that the back end closes before it pops to make a bubble. I took pictures with my crappy Treo camera. We made ten times as many bubble attempts as pictures taken, and I don't have all the pictures displayed here.

The most treacherous path for the bubble was near any of the younger children. Those that escaped that fate floated off to the roofs and the sharp needles of evergreens to meet their doom. Don't bubbles sometimes remind you of your mortality?















I eventually got clever and could create bubbles, catch them back onto the hanger wand (if there was a good film) and watch the wand suck the bubble back into it. Then I waved the wand to make a bubble again. It was a good metaphor for reincarnation.



Two bubbles at one time. Perhaps a focus on quality over quantity would have been more appropriate.






Some were not as easily impressed with the giant bubbles in their midst.






Floating in circular perfection. By the way, a star shaped bubble wand doesn't result in star shaped bubbles because once the bubble leaves the wand the soap film attempts to achieve the lowest energy shape. For a single bubble, not on a wand, that's a sphere.



Dangerous head-eating attack bubble goes after child!







tags: bubbles, Colloid, surfactant