Warm and Cold Soap Bubbles

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
Do soap bubbles last longer on warm or cold days?
- joseph (age 10)
dooley elementary, Plano, Tx
A:
Well, I’ll bet it has a lot to do with the relative humidity, also, whether a soap bubble pops right away or lasts a long time. Soap bubbles pop when their walls get too thin, and this happens, at least mostly, due to evaporation. Sometimes, if the soap is not very viscous, a little puddle of soap will accumulate at the bottom of a soap bubble, and I’d imagine soap bubbles are almost always thicker on the bottom than on the top.

Water generally evaporates faster when it is warmer, but there are a lot of variables involved -- humidity, air flow, and heat flow.

If your day is really really cold, it may even be possible to freeze a soap bubble!

Tom

(published on 10/22/2007)