why do soap bubbles sometimes jump a couple of times before sticking to the surface of the still water?

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I was blowing bubbles into the bath. And like 1/3 would make a jump before sticking.

If this is relevant, the bubble liquid was 40ml water + 10ml dishwashing liquid + 1/3 teaspoon of sugar

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pretty sure this is just surface tension of both the bubble and the water being strong enough to allow the bubble to bounce a couple times before the surface tension breaks and the bubble pops.

Water has surface tension because water molecules love to stick to each other and form a strong chain. When water is at rest, think of the surface of a puddle, the tension is surface tension is quite strong. Yo break surface tension, it takes a force stronger than the force holding those molecules together.

So with a bubble and a pool of water, you have a body of water at rest more or less. And a bubble (I’m assuming the bath water was made up of just normal water) which also has its own surface tension. Normally soap helps break surface tension easier. But with the sugar, I’m not sure.

So basically you have two things with their own surface tension just take some time for the tension in one of both to break and absorb each other.

Anonymous 0 Comments

bubbles are held together by surface tension, which pulls the water together. they want to stay round because that is the shape with the least surface area, everything is pulled in all the way.

when it lands on the water it can bounce because it squishes and the surface tension brings it back to being round so it jumps up a little. once it contacts the water enough to start mixing with the water it can save a bunch more surface area by blobbing down into a dome shape and it sticks.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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