Why do soap bubbles shimmer?
Don't you love to watch and catch soap bubbles as they float in the air? Whether they are blown from a plastic pipe, or lathered between your hands, the bubbles seem to shimmer with colours that !' shift between blue, red, and purple as they encounter even small amounts of light.
The reason they do so is because of the properties of light. When light rays move from one transparent medium to another-in this case, from air to the bubble- some rays go through, and some rays bounce back, or are reflected. These light rays bend at the point where air meets the bubble.
When light bends, it is called refraction- and refraction is what causes soap bubbles to be coloured. The more the light ray bend, the blue rays from the spectrum will become visible to the human eye. Smaller bends make the red parts of the spectrum visible. In effect, the surface of the bubbles acts like a prism that separates the various light rays into their individual wavelengths, and these appear to us as shimmering colours.
No comments:
Post a Comment