New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Soap bubble

A soap bubble is a very thin film of soap water that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few moments and then burst either on their own or on contact with another object. They are often used as a children's plaything, but their usage in artistic performances shows that they can be fascinating for adults too. Soap bubbles can help to solve complex mathematical problems of space, as they will always find the smallest surface area between points or edges.

A bubble can exist because the surface layer of a liquid (usually water) has a certain surface tension, which causes the layer to behave somewhat like an elastic sheet. However, a bubble made with a pure liquid alone is not stable and a dissolved surfactant such as soap is needed to stabilize a bubble. A common misconception is that soap increases the water's surface tension. Actually soap does the exact opposite, decreasing it to approximately one third the surface tension of pure water. Soap does not strengthen bubbles, it stabilizes them, via an action known as the Marangoni effect. As the soap film stretches, the surface concentration of soap decreases, which causes the surface tension to increase. Thus, soap selectively strengthens the weakest parts of the bubble and tends to prevent them from stretching further.

Related Stories
 


Matter & Energy News

August 24, 2025

Ripple bugs’ fan-like legs inspired engineers to build the Rhagobot, a tiny robot with self-morphing fans. By mimicking these insects’ passive, ultra-fast movements, the robot gains speed, control, and endurance without extra ...
Scientists have developed a groundbreaking cryo-optical microscopy technique that freezes living cells mid-action, capturing ultra-detailed snapshots of fast biological processes. By rapidly immobilizing cells at precise moments, researchers can ...
By using quantum dots and smart encryption protocols, researchers overcame a 40-year barrier in quantum communication, showing that secure networks don’t need perfect hardware to outperform today’s best ...
Researchers at Zhejiang University have found a way to stop performance-killing Auger recombination in perovskite lasers, using a clever additive during processing. Their method produced a record-breaking laser with unprecedented efficiency, ...
Scientists may have uncovered the missing piece of quantum computing by reviving a particle once dismissed as useless. This particle, called the neglecton, could give fragile quantum systems the full power they need by working alongside Ising ...
Researchers developed a crystal that inhales and exhales oxygen like lungs. It stays stable under real-world conditions and can be reused many times, making it ideal for energy and electronic applications. This innovation could reshape technologies ...
Lithium battery recycling offers a powerful solution to rising demand, with discarded batteries still holding most of their valuable materials. Compared to mining, recycling slashes emissions and resource use while unlocking major economic ...
Researchers have unveiled a new quantum material that could make quantum computers much more stable by using magnetism to protect delicate qubits from environmental disturbances. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on rare spin-orbit ...
Rice University scientists have discovered a way to make tiny vibrations, called phonons, interfere with each other more strongly than ever before. Using a special sandwich of silver, graphene, and silicon carbide, they created a record-breaking ...
Researchers have found a clever way to make quantum dots, tiny light-emitting crystals, produce streams of perfectly controlled photons without relying on expensive, complex electronics. By using a precise sequence of laser pulses, the team can ...
Scientists have developed a lightning-fast AI tool called HEAT-ML that can spot hidden “safe zones” inside a fusion reactor where parts are protected from blistering plasma heat. Finding these areas, known as magnetic shadows, is key to keeping ...
Scientists have found that microscopic gold clusters can act like the world’s most accurate quantum systems, while being far easier to scale up. With tunable spin properties and mass production potential, they could transform quantum computing and ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET