Square Bubbles

It's easy to make a square bubble using dish soap and water.

Do square bubbles really exist? That's the question of the day and the answer is yes… if you know the science secret. Square bubbles are easy to make and serve as a great learning tool as students explore the concepts of soap films and surface tension. Get ready to amaze your friends.

Materials

Square Bubble Maker
Large bucket for water
Dawn dish soap
Glycerin (optional)
Pipette

Note: Perfectly good bubbles can be made without adding glycerin, but adding glycerin keeps the water from evaporating and makes the bubbles much stronger and longer lasting.

Also, like fine wine, bubble solution improves with age. If you can, leave the mixture in an open container for at least one day before using it.

Experiment
Video
Reviews

Square Bubbles

Find a container to hold about 7.5 liters (2 gallons) of water.
Add approximately 1/4 cup of liquid dish soap. You may need to tweak the amount of dish soap and water slightly. The real "bubble masters" prefer the Dawn brand but other brands work. Just try to avoid dish soap that contains antibacterial products.
Mix the bubble solution gently with your hand. For crystal-clear bubbles, be sure that you always keep the surface free of foam. If the water is hard in your area, add extra dish soap.
Dip the square bubble contraption into the bubble solution. Always hold the model by a node. Dipping at an angle works best. Be sure that the model is immersed completely, so that all sides are covered. Gently lift the model out of the bubble solution. You should have an exciting geometric bubble!

Now Try This!

Cut the bulb off of the top of a graduated pipette. Now you have a perfect bubble blower!
Shake your square bubble just a little and you will see that the edges start to collapse and make a new shape inside the square bubble structure.
Gently put the larger end of the pipette up to the middle of your square bubble.
Very gently blow into the pipette... what starts to happen? You get a bubble inside of a bubble! So cool!

How does it work?

Bubbles form because of the surface tension of water. Hydrogen atoms in one water molecule are attracted to oxygen atoms in other water molecules. They like each other so much, they cling together. So why are bubbles round? The physicists will tell you that bubbles enclose the maximum volume of air in the minimum amount of bubble solution, so that's why they are always round. In this activity, as you dip the Square Bubble Maker into the solution, the solution is stretched between the struts and the bubbles cling to the sides of the structure, causing the bubbles to be square.