The world of soap bubbles: from fantasy to science

Abstract

Soap bubbles have been one of the most fascinating play activities for almost every child. The various ways of making different size bubbles, their reproducible geometrical forms, their beautiful colours, and their tenacity, the emotional involvement in their sustainability before they perish and the way they fly, have always added to the cascaded excitement in the play with soap bubbles. It is not limited to just children but also has been of profound interest to poets, scientists, mathematicians, artists and architects for hundreds of years. Apart from the fantasy driving most of the innocent playful and dreamy minds, soap bubbles also display a plethora of deep science and a variety of forces shaping nature. Present article depicts a way to appreciate science through the lenses of multidisciplinary dimensions, the same manner in which the very Nature has unfolded it to us. The article then reviews enormous progress the human beings with curious minds have made to search for the origin of the observations pertaining to soap bubbles, either made casually or consciously. Although the article is based on various aspects of science of soap bubbles including some demonstrations, the approach can be extended to many topics in all the disciplines.