h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A mixture using "Fairy washing up liquid and water" is ok for bubble blowing, but not as good as the bought stuff. What can I use to make a good bubble mixture at home?

I'm told glycerin is the thing to add to improve it - available from chemists or cake-baking type shops (you put it in icing to stop it drying out). I think it makes the film stronger by stopping the water evaporating.

Have fun!

Ugi

The guys in the Science Museum in London, who blow really big bubbles, told me that the best thing is pure undiluted Fairy liquid.

Will any other washing up liquid do as well?

Fairy is a particularly thick and gooey washing up liquid.

Sorry to hear about the rain, TC. Where did you go, Prague?

my mum always used glycerine, water and fairy too.

but i dont know if all the new fairys are as good as the original, i mean, that red stuff looks really dodgy!

one of the funniest comments i ever heard on h2g2 just has to repeated here (sorry i cant remember who wrote it)


"which part of the fairy....does the liquid come from?"

FABT

Red stuff??!?!?!

You get Fairy washing up liquid in, yellow(ish), green, and red thesedays

Isn't the red a sort of raspberry wannabee? I quite like it! And we also get blue, which has a nasty antiseptic smell.

Well, and you can tell who does the washing up in my house...

Are the different colours flavoured?

Let me see...

Darkish Green: original.
Yellow: lemon.
Other lightish green one: apple.
Red: red berries? Iit's got pictures of raspberries and redcurrants on...
Blue: I think that's supposed to be antibacterial. Whatever flavour that is

I thought blue would have been original...?
Over here in Australia, All the detergents and stuff like that are blue if it's original...

in the UK I have somethings advertized as, " BRAND NEW ORIGINAL" .now whats that all about

manda

Real Fairy is dark green. The others just smell different. But where does the colour go when you put it in the water? The washing up water isn't even slightly blue or red or green - it's quite clear with a couple of bubbles on the top. Even on the sponge it just makes white foam, but no sign of the colour.

?????

good question! i've thought about that before...

Scientific explanation coming up.

Perceived colour is created by the crystallinity (ie. the regularity of arrangement of atoms/molecules), of certain substances. Depending on the distances between rows of atoms/molecules, certain wavelengths of colours are reflected, and some are absorbed by the constituent electrons. If just the red wavelengths are reflected, you see a red-coloured thing. If all are reflected, by that well-known phenomena, you see white.

Another contributing factor to colour is the re-emission of radiation, which accounts for the differing colours of flames.

When you make a bubble, the outer layer is extremely thin, less than 10 Angstroms or a few a few atomic diameters. Therefore, there is not enough crystallinity to reflect any light, the light passes straight through, and you have transparency. Happy?

B