Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-05-05
The Science Of a Soap Bubble.

How many of II boys and girls
know what is meant by the science of
anything? The word science means
true knowledge, and to know truly, per-
fectly about an object, we must know of
what it is made or what causes it, and
what properties it has, such as form,
color, weight.
How shall we make Il soap bubble?
Of soap and water, you will all nay.
Only soap and water? One such bubble
will be gone before you can send another
to catch it. In my childhood days I
thought it real fun to see them burst,
but more fun to make them last a long
time.
Now the secret lies in getting just the
right mixture. Put into a common
white bottle one and one-half ounce of
CASTLE soap, n pint of water and
three-quarters of a pint of pure glyc-
crime. This is Plateau's solution, and
from it he makes bubbles that are very,
very beautiful, though, being blind, he
can see them only with the eyes of his
mind.
We can use in the blowing an ordinary
tobacco pipe or glass tube. 1t is hard
to make very large bubbles with the
mouth, and sometimes a pairof bellows
is used. We cannot examine our bub-
BILE while it is dancing over the table
or floating in the air, SO we need q sup
port, which we will make Of q wire
ring fastened horizontally to the head
Of a large nail. The nail should first
be driven into a small block of wood,
just far enough to keep it firm. Letthe
ring be smeared with paraf1ine; it pre-
vents the wire from cutting into the
bubble. Aglass shade may be placed
over the bubble, and it's support thu:
protects it from draughts of air.
Let us see, now, what GU bubble con
sists of. A portion of air enclosed by a
film-something very thin-which is
made Of soap and water. So we have
the three forms of matter-the solid,
liquid and gaseous.
When blown from the mouth the all
inside Of the bubble is warmer and
lighter than the outside air, and ou1
bubble will rise. When filled from bel.
lows, the air is colder and heavier,
causing the bubble to fall. This rising
and falling is due to pressure of the all
which, some OF the boys will tell us, is
equal to fifteen pounds to every square
inch.
Different airs or gases have different
weights. This may be prettily shown
by putting into a vessel of any kind a
few pieces of chalk. Pour over them a
little vinegar. A bubbling will begin
and a gas set free which we call car
bonic acid gas. Its presence may be
shown by putting in a lighted match,
which this gas will at once put out.
Fill a bubble with air; let it fall upon
the acid gas. 1t will remain supported
seemingly upon nothing, for this air
is lnvlsible-as long as any Of the gas is
left. If you could fill a bubble with nv.
drogen it would bound upwards at a
great rate, for that gas is the lightest
known.
Let us now look at the colors in our
bubble: How beautiful they are, dane
ing and flashing so fast-changing so
rapidly we can not begin to count them.
But we know that white light, that is,
sunlight, is composed of seven colors.
They can all be seen in the rainbow.
Let a beam of light fall upon the bub-
BILE. Part of the light passes right
through or is absorbed, and part is at
nee thrown back or reflected. The
portion of the film that absorbs all the
colors and reflects or throws back only
the blue will appear blue, and so on for
all the others. And so the thickness of
the film changes the absorption and re-
Election Of the light changes, soft is that
u bubble sparkles with all the beautiful
and delicate tints OF the rainbow.
Adding more glycerine will make the
coloring even more brilliant. Indeed,
u bubbles a be made perfectly cor.
geous.-Baptist Weekly.
AT Las Vegas, n. NJ, is a court in.