Thursday, July 15, 2010

Blowing bubbles: 1704

If a Bubble be blown with Water first made tenacious by dissolving a little Soap in it, 'tis a common Observation, that after a while it will appear tinged with a great variety of Colours. To defend these Bubbles from being agitated by the external Air (whereby their Colours are irregularly moved one among another, so that no accurate Observation can be made of them,) as soon as I had blown any of them I cover'd it with a clear Glass, and by that means its Colours emerged in a very regular order, like so many concentrick Rings encompassing the top of the Bubble.
--From Opticks--

Soap bubbles were one of the experimental subjects which helped Newton develop his theories on the properties of light! Only kids play with them now, but they were like the particle accelerators of their day.

3 comments:

Trooper York said...

"What's a bath without Bubbles. Hello Bubbles"
(Rodney Dangerfield, Back to School)

chickelit said...

Didn't Pink Floyd (who famously used Newton's prism experiment as cover art for Dark Side Of The Moon) also sing about "breaking bubbles in the hall" in their song Hey You?

chickelit said...

I heard that Floyd were into drugs too and smoking things up.