Research project "Soap bubbles"
Methods and techniques:
observation, experiment, analysis.
From the history of soap bubbles
There is a legend about the appearance of the first soap bubble: one fine day, when soap was finally created, the king, not joking at all, ordered everyone to wash themselves with soap under pain of death. And everyone washed their washcloths that day. Only one old shoemaker named Pumpatus sat hidden in his shoebox. More than anything else, Pumpatus hated washing his neck. Footsteps were heard outside the window. Two huge guards took Pumpatus by the armpits and five minutes later they were leading him to the city prison. In the room where Pumpatus was locked, there was a bathtub with soapy foam and a lot of towels. "Agree?" - asked two huge guards. "Never!" - answered Pumpatus. And he was left to smoke his pipe for the last time. Pumpatus took a drag and suddenly saw a beautiful transparent ball fly out of the tube. The ball flew out the window and shone in the Sun: small rainbows were jumping in it. After the first ball, the second one flew out... Pumpatus looked with all his eyes at the miracle taking place. The passers-by below also raised their heads to look at it. Soon a crowd gathered and a commotion began. Everyone, of course, forgot to think about the fact that Pumpatus was supposed to be executed. The professor, who was invited to figure it out, examined Pumpatus' pipe. “Soap scum got into the pipe. That’s what it’s all about,” the professor announced to the crowd outside the window. Pumpatus, of course, was not executed, and after that soap bubbles became popular not only in one small kingdom, but throughout the whole world!
Even in the paintings of Flemish artists of the 18th century, there were often images of children blowing soap bubbles through a clay straw. In the 18th and 19th centuries, children blew soap bubbles using soapy water left over from washing. Blowing soap bubbles became even more popular when in 1886 the Pears Soap Company began advertising its "air" product using the famous painting "Bubbles" by John Millais (1829-1896).
There is even a myth about the fragility of a soap bubble, but it was dispelled by the Englishman James Dewar, who preserved the soap bubble in a sealed vessel with double walls. An Indiana physics teacher managed to preserve a bubble in a glass jar for 340 days.
Why is a soap bubble round?
To make soap bubbles of different geometric shapes, my dad and I made frames in the form of a spiral, cube and triangle from copper wire. I dipped each frame in soapy water and tried to blow a bubble out of it. But for some reason the soap bubbles did not fly out. The wire blank was enveloped in a beautiful rainbow film, but the round bubble did not want to fly out. I blew harder and a soap bubble flew out of the triangular frame. The bubble turned out to be round again.
