Magnetized Soap Bubbles

Compressed 02 from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.

I got this great story and video after reading Fast Company (such a great magazine about innovation.  I even downloaded the app for my ipod touch). Originally posted by the Suzan Labarre (du Savon?).

San Francisco designer Kim Pimmel combined soap bubbles with dye and some creepy music and got this time-lapse video.  It is horrific.  I am glad Ï do not have a bath in my apartment.  Watching The Living Dead is scary enough.  I do not need to have some magnetic monster attach me. 

The bubbles make little tubes of film filled with water.  The iron fills those tubes through capillary action (think plants sucking water through its roots).  The bubbles in the video are accentuated by the dye running through with the water showing the minimal surface of the soap film, with equal pressure on inside as outside the bubbles.  Bubbles and foaming are just recently discovered although people have been playing with bubbles for 400 years.  Understanding the physicochemical properties of the surfactants using high throughput devices and foam testers is something that big home care companies are interested.

Do not be mistaken the bubbles are not dyed but rather the water is which is apparent at the end.  The dye does not attach to the soap though but rather just moves with the water through the narrow tubes to give the awesome affect.   Pimmel shot the sequence with a Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 60mm macro lens.