Simple, at home experiment:


To make some excellent and strong bubbles, here is a recipe (7):

  • ½ cup of dish soap
  • 4 ½ cups of water
  • 4 tablespoons of glycerin (available at some drug store or online)
  •  Wire (or string), straws, modeling clay, and toothpicks (to make bubble wands)
To experiment with a variety of bubble shapes and observe surface tension, here is an experiment to try (7):
  1. Mix of the top three ingredients above in a bowl to make the bubble solution
  2. Make a bubble wand using the wire (or string) and straws, in any shape
  3. Try to blow some bubbles, and observe the shape it makes
  4. Use the toothpicks and clay to make 3-D bubble wands (e.g. Figure 8)
  5. Dip 3-D wands into the bubble solution, and observe the shape before blowing at it
  6. Experiment with different shaped wands. The bubbles shape may not be what is expected.
3-D Examples
Figure 8. Examples of different 3-D bubble
wands made out of toothpicks and modeling clay (7).


From this simple experiment, one can notice that the bubbles always take the shape with the minimal surface area, a sphere when in midair. With the 3-D wands, the bubble will fill in the shape with the least area inside the wand. The bubble is able to maintain this shape because of surface tension.

Updated 11/23/2016