Blowing Bubbles is Fun

1912

INTEREST IN SOAP BUBBLES

Those Made of Soap Water to Which Glycerine Has Been Added Are Quite Attractive.

Have you ever stopped to think what a really interesting thing a soap bubble is? Soap bubbles are not only interesting to boys and girls, but they have long been a source of and interest to men of science. In fact, scientists have employed soap bubbles in trying to perform certain experiments.

A soap bubble is nothing more than a film of water molecules (tiny particles that cannot be seen with the naked eye), held together by the sticking power of dissolved soap. As most all of us know, in making bubbles the bowl of a common clay pipe is dipped into soap water. The bubble maker blows air into the pipe and the bubble at once expands. While bubbles made of plain soap water are interesting, those made of soap water to which some glycerine has been added are even more attractive, because they have such pretty colors.

There are many ways of making bubbles. For instance, smoke may be blown through the pipe into the bubbles or one bubble may be blown inside of another. Very large bubbles can be made by using the hands instead of a pipe. Cover the hands well with suds and then hold them so as to form a cup, as if drinking with the hands from a spring, but leaving a small hole in the bottom. With the mouth about a foot from the hands, blow a current of air into them. Some of the bubbles will be more than a foot in diameter. Try this experiment the next time you wash your hands.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 11.