Soap Bubble Investigation looks into physics, chemistry and fluid dynamics.

Change a bubble solution recipe by adding glycerin, sugar or alternating blowing techniques.

How long does the bubble last?

What happens to its size?

How does the revised bubble behave?

And Their Motion Is Subject To Control.

Scientists discovered that shaking bubbles vertically can make them move horizontally. We can transform vibrations into directed motion. As in opening doors for controlling micro-robots or particles in fluids.

Creating a spherical film of soapy water.

And trapping air.

With colors arising from light reflecting off its inner and outer surfaces. 

As early as the Zhou Dynasty 1046-256 B.C.E. Ancient Chinese people discovered that the suds & bubbles from ashes of certain plants could effectively remove grease. That method was later improved by mixing plant ash with crushed seashells. This was a combination that created a strong alkaline substance effective for washing silk fabrics. The chemical reactions involved in this process naturally produced some form of foam and bubbles.

Soap Bubble Films have been used in practical Mathematical problem solving.

Engineer Frei Otto used soap bubble films to determine the geometry of a sheet of least surface area that spreads between several points.

He translated this geometry into revolutionary tensile roof structures.

A famous example is his West German Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal Canada.

A Soap-Bubble Party would consist of bowls with a warm bubble solution that included extra glycerin.

A clay pipe for each guest was decorated with ribbon. And hand fans were used to blow the bubbles around.

Hosts gave out prizes for the biggest bubble, the bubble that popped last & the bubble that reached the highest or furthest point. Parties could be set up inside or outside. Also along tennis courts so the attendees could try to blow bubbles back and forth across the net!

Water molecules like to stick to each other.

And scientists call this sticky, elastic tendency  “surface tension.

When you blow a bubble, you create a thin film of water molecules sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules.

Meet King Shabazz & His Best Friend Tony Polito.

What King really did NOT believe in was Science as an active, inquisitive, investigative adventure. Reduced to a series of Show & Tell Adults proclaiming a seasonal event for which he had no evidence or experience.

“Everybody talking about bout Spring. But WHERE is it at?”

Finally fed up and frustrated with the empty words, he declared, “I’m goin to get me some of this Spring. If Spring really is Just Around The Corner. I’m goin to go round there and see what do I see.”

King and Tony set off on a manhunt across their city neighborhood in search of Spring.

Spring is absolutely nowhere to be found at the school, the playground, Weissman’s Delicious Smelling Fine Bakery, the Church of the Solid Rock, a restaurant, a Texas Bar-B-Q take-out shop or the nearby vacant lot.

But they do spy a big, beautiful, dark red abandoned car. Wheels gone and perched on a high up mound of dirt. Halfway to the car was a patch of little yellow pointy flowers growing in the middle of short spiky green leaves.

Spring!

“Man, I think you tripped on these crops. They’re comin up. Man, the crops are comin up.”

And resting on the front seat of the old car, down in a whole lot of cottony stuff was a nest containing four light blue eggs.

“Spring is here.” King Shabazz whispers to Tony.

“Right,” Tony whispers back to King.

Hofstra’s Lazer Goldberg agrees with King Shabazz & Tony. He writes that Science Is Where You Find It. Every large city is good hunting ground. NYC is full of a huge variety of rocks, minerals, bird species, flowers, lichen, fungi and fern. Also micro & macroscopic freshwater life, trees, shrubs, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and insects.

And consider the people excavating for new buildings, building bridges, flying aircraft and manufacturing goods of all kinds. This too is observable Science.

King Shabazz & Tony somehow sensed that they would recognize Spring when they saw it. They had no equipment, guide books, curriculum or a prior knowledge base. Lazer Goldberg references Physicist Richard Feynman’s childhood nature walks with his salesman father. Senior Feynman may not have memorized the names of various birds, trees, rocks and flowers. But he did share with his son “The wonder he felt about natural events. Birds returning to precisely the same place each year. The life cycle in the woods that seemed to satisfy all its interdependent living things.

What was important was the SPIRIT the father transmitted to his young son. That feeling endured in Nobel Laureate Scientist Richard Feynman.“