When a light wave hits the surface of a bubble,
part of the light is reflected back to a viewer's eye from the outer surface and part of
the light is reflected from the inner surface which is a few millionths of an inch
further. As the two waves of light travel back, they interfere with one
another causing what we know as color. When the waves reinforce each other, the color
is more intense. When the wave get close to canceling each other out, there is
almost no color. As a bubble wall gets thinner, either from a weak solution or
because gravity has pulled its chemical content to the bottom, the distance between the
inner surface and the outer surface of the bubble becomes less and less until the two
reflected waves of light start to coincide and cancel each other out. The result is
that the bubble loses its color and can become nearly invisible. |
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