Therefore the bubbles will generally have a shorter lifetime at higher temperatures. High temperatures will make the water in the soap bubbles evaporate faster. The process of breaking a soap bubble can be seen in slow motion if the process is recorded with a fast frame camera.Īlternatively, long lasting soap bubbles can be made by lowering the temperature of the bubbles. From here the soap water will be thrown further away from the breaking point.

The breakage of the bubble will start at a point from where the soap film will retract until all the remaining film meets at a point on the opposite side of the bubble than the breaking point. And when it breaks it will be torn apart. In the end even the oldest bubble will break. The famous physicist James Dewar kept a soap film disk with a diameter of 19 cm for over three years! The recipe Dewar used can be found in: Dewar, Lady (ed.) (1927) Collected papers of Sir James Dewar, Cambridge, 2. A flat soap film will not break as easily as a curved. It is said that the soap bubble enthusiast Eiffel Plasterer succeeded in having a bubble lasting for more than a year! To make the bubbles last so long a special recipe is needed, but Eiffel Plasterers bubble mixture for long lasting bubbles unfortunately was always kept a secret.

Using our soap bubbles mixtures we have had bubbles lasting for a week in an ordinary jar, but others have had bubbles lasting for much longer. After saturation the evaporation will almost stop, and the bubble will be able to have a long life in the jar. Water from every surface in the jar will now evaporate and the humidity will quickly increase until the air is saturated with vapour. When the bubble is made, the jar should be firmly closed. Fill some soap bubble mixture in the bottom of the jar and make sure to wet the wire and the sides of the jar before making the bubble. The easiest thing is to put the bubble in a jar on a ring of wire. This can be done by storing the bubble in a closed room with very high humidity. If you want to make soap bubbles that can last for hours or days, you will have to further decrease the evaporation.

To decrease the evaporation of water from the bubbles one can use the trick of adding some glycerine to the soap-water mixture. Glycerol makes the soap bubbles more flexible and increase their life time.

Frozen bubble solution