I am not a huge fan of street performers. I have been known to suggest the festival becomes a 4-yearly event like the Olympics, or is relocated to elsewhere returning only occasionally to Edinburgh. And often because shouty men on unicycles are trying to wring wallets full of change out of tourists while juggling fire clubs or chainsaws. Much of it comes under the banner not-quite-good-enough-for-tv. (And that is a low bar right there.) It's not that I have super-high standards. It's often just that they don't either. And too large a portion of the act becomes about the money. And about crowd gathering, the drum roll, not the finale.
So you may be surprised to hear the other day Mr Grumpy was cycling through the meadows and saw a totally FAB street performer who shut the fork up and just let his bubbles do the talking. No beatbox, no robotic dancing, NO YODA ON A PLATFORM SO OBVIOUSLY HELD ALOFT BY THE CANE TOUCHING THE GROUND. Where was I? Oh yes: magical and professional in equal measures, this charming act caught my eye and I got off my bike and took photos. 5 minutes of delight.
A paddling pool of soapy liquid (I imagine, I didn't ask if there was a magic formula) and some loops strung between 2 poles. One set large for large bubbles one set small for... well have a guess. You can see he has put this together over a while. The rubber gloves. The hat and glasses to avoid bubble burst and an eyeful of Fairy Liquid. Wellies because only gutting fish produces more slop over your footwear. And his performer name Freakbubbles on his back. Actually he is more facebook and instagram than website, but I like his lack of commerce, which speaks of hobbyist rather than venture capitalist. Ear buds in presumably to drown out the banal. Music while you work. He really did seem to be doing this for his own enjoyment, and didn't at any point encourage the audience to put their hands in their pockets. I enjoyed it so much I put several pounds in the nearby container but was one of the few doing so and he would have been lucky to cover the cost of his soap.
A paddling pool of soapy liquid (I imagine, I didn't ask if there was a magic formula) and some loops strung between 2 poles. One set large for large bubbles one set small for... well have a guess. You can see he has put this together over a while. The rubber gloves. The hat and glasses to avoid bubble burst and an eyeful of Fairy Liquid. Wellies because only gutting fish produces more slop over your footwear. And his performer name Freakbubbles on his back. Actually he is more facebook and instagram than website, but I like his lack of commerce, which speaks of hobbyist rather than venture capitalist. Ear buds in presumably to drown out the banal. Music while you work. He really did seem to be doing this for his own enjoyment, and didn't at any point encourage the audience to put their hands in their pockets. I enjoyed it so much I put several pounds in the nearby container but was one of the few doing so and he would have been lucky to cover the cost of his soap.
The sunlight catching the detergent was brilliant. A childlike joy in this nearly miraculous display of science. So explain why soap bubbles form I hear you ask, tell us about the Marangoni effect and surface tension.
A bubble can exist because the surface layer of a liquid (usually water) has a certain surface tension, which causes the layer to behave somewhat like an elastic sheet. However, a bubble made with a pure liquid alone is not stable and a dissolved surfactant such as soap is needed to stabilize a bubble. A common misconception is that soap increases the water's surface tension. Actually soap does the exact opposite, decreasing it to approximately one third the surface tension of pure water. Soap does not strengthen bubbles, it stabilizes them, via an action known as the Marangoni effect: mass transfer along an interface between two fluids due to a gradient of the surface tension. In the case of temperature dependence, this phenomenon may be called thermo-capillary convection. OK that is probably enough internet cut-and-paste.
A bubble can exist because the surface layer of a liquid (usually water) has a certain surface tension, which causes the layer to behave somewhat like an elastic sheet. However, a bubble made with a pure liquid alone is not stable and a dissolved surfactant such as soap is needed to stabilize a bubble. A common misconception is that soap increases the water's surface tension. Actually soap does the exact opposite, decreasing it to approximately one third the surface tension of pure water. Soap does not strengthen bubbles, it stabilizes them, via an action known as the Marangoni effect: mass transfer along an interface between two fluids due to a gradient of the surface tension. In the case of temperature dependence, this phenomenon may be called thermo-capillary convection. OK that is probably enough internet cut-and-paste.
So in summary thank you Mr Freakbubbles. Great bit of magic without any trickery.
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