What Affects Soap Bubble Formation?
Soap bubbles dazzle the eye and attract people of all ages. The glistening reflections on their surfaces betray subtle changes in light. Although these fleeting objects display a mystery on their surfaces, the rules that form them are actually pretty simple and well understood. Made in the bath, shower or from the breathe of a bubble blower, all soap bubbles use the same rules to guide their formation. Chemistry of the Soap Soap molecules have a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic end. The hydrophilic end is attracted to water, whereas water repels the hydrophobic end. The hydrophobic end will move away from the water, making the soap bubble rise to the surface. As more and more soap molecules rise to the surface, they will connect in a membrane (thin layer) with all the hydrophobic ends facing away from the water and all the hydrophilic ends facing toward the water. If another layer of soap molecules forms a membrane opposite to the first membrane, these two membranes have trapped a layer o
