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back to article Boffins don't want to burst your bubble – they create them with sound

Fluid dynamics is weird. Physicists have reverse engineered the popping of a bubble and managed to keep it levitated just by using the power of sound. Iridescent bubbles form when a film of soapy liquid is punctured. The film retracts from the hole and the molecules are pulled back and rearranged to reduce its surface area, …

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  1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Pint

    That is brilliant!

    Maybe one day this will add to our understanding of the head on a good pint

    11 0 Reply
  2. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    A part of my body did exactly that this morning!

    2 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon

      TMI. But have an upvote any way for the admission.

      0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Old school ultrasonic bubbles

    I worked in a lab in a factory producing chemicals for lithographic printing in the early 1970s. One of the products was a fairly viscous liquid that was passed through an ultrasonic device to generate bubbles. Memory fades, but I think it was used as a developer for fine images on printing plates. One of the QA tests on the product was to examine a sample under a microscope and measure the diameter of the bubbles. If they were too large, the batch had to go back through the device until the bubbles met the spec.

    5 0 Reply
  4. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Happy

    Retrofitted justification

    "The researchers believe that studying the bubble formation process in detail will help the storage of food, cosmetics, or pharmaceuticals"

    Oh, come on.... it's just very cool. They had to come up with a "real world" use for the grant application.

    14 0 Reply
    1. TRT Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Retrofitted justification

      Ah... the curse of the government's current translational research bias.

      0 1 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Retrofitted justification

      > "They had to come up with a "real world" use for the grant application."

      To be fair, governments tend not to fund people who are forever blowing bubbles.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Mark 85
        Reply Icon

        Re: Retrofitted justification

        The government might want to fund this since the politicians blow bubbles and want to stay in office.

        0 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Retrofitted justification

        Just their football stadium. ;-)

        0 0 Reply
  5. hplasm
    Paris Hilton

    So that is why-

    The Enterprise has spherical shields...

    /showerthinking

    0 0 Reply
  6. Fabrizio

    My dad's the bestest dad in the world!

    My dad blows bubbles all day long at the office.

    Now imagine the kindergarten teacher's face...

    0 0 Reply

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