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Exploding Bubbles

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Playing with fire is never a good idea. In fact, when it is done indoors, it becomes a horrible idea. Thus, I decided it would be appropriate for my “horrible” blog post. To link fire with my ISP topic, bubbles, I decided to devise a way to make flammable bubbles. Flammable bubbles are traditionally made with hydrogen from either a chemical reaction (such as hydrochloric acid and zinc) or from electrolysis (passing electricity through water), both of which are quite difficult and finicky, and would’ve required several additional purchases. Still, I wanted to make flammable bubbles, and so I perused my house for possible materials. I wandered into the garage and a blue canister of propane with a torch attached caught my eye. After reading up on the dangers of propane, I realized that it was even more volatile than hydrogen, making this a doubleplusgood idea. So, I busted out my faithful container of bubble solution, stuck the torch in, opened the valve, and blew some bubbles...
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Painting with Bubbles

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Since I am unable to draw or paint for my life, for this ISP entry, I have decided to use bubbles to do the hard work for me. I will be making bubble art; in essence, I will be using colored bubble solution to create fascinating designs. I first made some bubble solution. I kept the ingredients as simple as possible to not interfere with the pigment and the bursting pattern – thickeners such as corn syrup are useful to make the bubble last longer but create weird stringy bursting patterns. Then, I scavenged our cabinets for possible colors. I settled on using food coloring, of which I could find four colors of. I divided the bubble solution into four equal portions for the four colors and I eyeballed a rough amount of food coloring to put into each portion. Then, I blew bubbles. However, blowing bubbles is not the point of this entry. I realized that despite how entertaining blowing bubbles was, I needed to make art, and so I put a piece of paper to catch the bubbles...
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Visual Magic

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Colors As mentioned in the last blog post, I will be discussing the science behind the cool colors of bubbles in this blog post. Spend 30 seconds trying to describe the bubble’s color. It is impossible to ascribe a single color to a bubble, as a bubble has an iridescent nature; in other words, the color shifts wildly from different angles. The same iridescence appears on numerous other objects in nature; for example, a gasoline spill’s swirling rainbow patterns on its surface, or a butterfly wing’s shimmery color. While deceivingly simple, there is a surprising amount of science behind the colors that appear on a soap bubble. In this post, I will be attempting to provide an easy-to-understand explanation of the iridescence of a bubble. The post will be broken down into subsections to help with this explanation. Light To begin with, we investigate the driving force behind color: light. Light is an “electromagnetic wave”, meaning that when it travels through space, it ...
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Stunning Bubbleography

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Those who are on your iPhone a lot may have seen this image: as it was the stock background for many iPhones. A cursory glance at this image may lead one to believe this is an extraterrestrial planet; I too was mesmerized by this image, when I realized that this was actually the surface of a bubble shot at a close distance. As I alluded to in my previous posts, light shone on bubbles should theoretically have stunning results. In practice, however, most bubble photographs are unflattering and boring. This is because it is extremely tricky to shine a light on a bubble properly in order to capture its capricious colors. I wanted to see if I could recreate an image such as the iPhone wallpaper (and potentially do it better) by capturing the vivid colors of bubbles and I ended up spending quite some time trying to figure out the most optimal and economical way to illuminate and photograph a bubble. To light a bubble properly for the purpose of photographing, a large and broad light sourc...
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