Bubbles science Project

"Bubble Bath"

I emptied my bubble bath into the tub,
Determined to get myself thoroughly scrubbed.
The bottle had said "ONLY ONE CAP OR TWO",
So I poured in the lot to see what it would do!

That still didn't seem quite enough to get clean,
So I followed it up with another fifteen.
Then three bars of soap and a dozen shampoo,
And two broken bath bombs to finish my brew!

I'll cut to the chase, this did not turn out well,
As the burbling, foaming bath bubbles did swell!
It wasn't all bad, I was clean and smelt sweet,
But outside my soap suds had buried the street!

©2005 Gareth Lancaster

Would you rather clean up the mess Gareth made with his bubbles, or figure out some facts about those bubbles? Or, like most people, would you like to do a little of both, and then have some play time?

There is a lot to learn from bubbles. For instance, let’s make a bubble batch, and I’ll show you.

Recipe:

• Three quarts dish detergent
• ¼ cup Karo Light Syrup
• Child’s swimming pool full of water
• One hula hoop

Before we begin, how smart do you think a bubble is? Seriously? If your job in life was to shine, be colorful, and entertain, how would you do it with just soap and water?

In a lot of ways, math is about intelligence that you can’t see except by looking at things a little bit differently than the way others do. For instance, if you look at a bubble mathematically, it is extremely intelligent. Why? Well, it conserves space for one thing. If all the bubbles originated in New York City, that would be a very good thing. Even as the world’s population continues to grow, we can learn from bubbles…. Now what do you think about that?

Let’s get down to earth. Here is the mathetical Idea:

A sphere has the smallest area for its volume of any solid shape.

Bubbles always try to make the smallest possible surface.

Is that why they are usually circular? What do you think?

Let’s examine the areas of some other shapes to see if the area of a circle per its volume is less than any other shapes. We’ll do this theoretically, and save the experimental angle for when we put a person into a bubble.

There is a whole field of mathematics called Minimal Surface Theory that deals with the sort of shapes that bubbles form.

Examine different shapes, such as a cube, pyramid, tetrahedron, etc.. Notice that you can draw these shapes to have the same amount of volume, but not the same amount of surface. The circle will always have less surface area. This is why bubbles form circles. As long as these shapes have air in them, they can be classed within what mathematicians call the Minimal Surface Theory. A minimal surface is one that has the smallest area possible.