Bubbles under the microscope are incredibly beautiful. . I love that when using polarized light, the edge of the bubbles produces a micro-rainbow. Did you see those pretty micro-rainbows? . In the first part of the video, when I added a drop of water to the bubbles, they floated on top of the water and the bubbles looked like microscopic jewels moving around. . In case you’re wondering why bubbles form when water and soap are mixed and shaken, it’s because a bubble consists of a thin layer of water trapped between two layers of soap molecules. Soap molecules are amphiphilic (they have hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails). The hydrophilic heads face inward toward the water layer, and the hydrophobic tails face outward, away from the water and towards the air. . In the second part of the video, you can see the bubbles that formed in a natural stream of water in the middle of the forest. . These bubbles happen because when organic matter in the forest decomposes (leaves, dead plants…), it can produce compounds that behave as soap molecules (surfactants). These compounds, when mixed with water, can create bubbles and foam (especially if the water gets agitated due to a turbulent flow of water). . This type of foam that you can see in water streams may be more noticeable after a period of heavy rainfall, when the water is carrying more of these dissolved surfactant compounds. These other “natural soap” bubbles are also incredibly beautiful under the microscope! . The shapes of nature are so beautiful! . For this video I used an Olympus CX31 microscope at 40x and 100X magnification and a polarizer filter.
#bubbles #microscopy #microscope #polarizedlight #naturalshapes #naturalpatterns #artinnature #drbioforever