Bursting the questions on Bubbles!

Bubbles are one of the fascinating things. The most important thing that everyone notices on the bubbles are the interesting colours on the surface of the bubble.

We all, when we were kids, used to blow bubbles. The experience would indeed be wonderful. As you would have appreciated it's perfectness in geometry and mostly the colours on it, you would appreciate it better, if you knew the science behind it!

 Courtesy: Google

• WHAT IS A BUBBLE ?

                Bubble is a thin layered sphere of liquid enclosing air or any other gas.

Let us in specific know about soap bubbles: Soap bubble is a bubble with it's surface showing luminous colours which seem to change, when seen from different angles, consisting of air in thin film of soapy water. However, they last for a very short interval of time and burst.

While reading the above sentences, one may catch the words " surface showing luminous colours".Ever wondered how are these colours formed?. Unlike the rainbow, where the colours appear due to series of refraction, the colours appearing on the surface of the soap bubbles are due to interference of light( both constructive interference and destructive interference) reflecting off from front and back surfaces of the surfaces of the bubble film. The colours on the surface of the bubble changes accordingly to its thickness.

 Courtesy: Google

                                    

• HOW IS A BUBBLE FORMED ?

The basic principle behind the formation of bubbles is surface tension. Bubbles are made using soap water. Here soap is an important additive since it is the soap that stabilizes the surface of the bubble by decreasing the surface tension, which allows it to stretch and hold its shape(the carbon and hydrogen molecules of the soap separate the water molecules in the mixture. as the distance between water molecules increases, hence surface tension decreases).Bubbles are sphere because it can sustain large number of molecules with least surface tension. Soap molecules surround the water molecules in the mixture, the hydrophilic end  of the soap molecule points towards water molecules and the hydrophobic end  is pointed away from water molecules. This indeed is how the surface of the bubble is formed. When air is blown, film traps the air in the center, causing it to retain it's shape.

 Courtesy: Google

Know about rainbows

We all know that rainbows are one of the unique phenomena where one can see the constituents of light naturally (It’s not always all the colours that are visible). Well, we all would have probably done this experiment at our school levels, that when we pass the beam of white light through a prism, we could see the seven constituent colours commonly known as the VIBGYOR. The principle behind the phenomenon is series of refractions of the light beam. Ever wondered how this happens in the atmosphere? In the absence of the prism? Well, the answer is simple, here, series of refractions do occur. But the surfaces are different. Here,it is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. This is caused by light getting refracted  when it enters a rain water droplet, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it. Rainbows are formed in the section of sky which is directly opposite to the sun.

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