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Mad Scientist Invents Colored Bubbles

Posted by Zonk on Thu Nov 17, 2005 06:19 PM
from the bubbles-make-the-heart-float dept.
Toys Science
Anonymous Custard writes "Popular Science has a fascinating article up about toy inventor Tim Kehoe's quest to create colored bubbles. 'Chemical burns, ruined clothes, 11 years, half a million dollars--it's not easy to improve the world's most popular toy. ... It turns out that coloring a bubble is an exceptionally difficult bit of chemistry.'"
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  • He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Knight Thrasher (766792) * on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:21PM (#14057721) Journal
    He's not a Mad Scientist!

    He's a happy, idea-patented RICH inventor. ;)

    That being said, this is EXCELLENT. Imagine possibilities like clothing that changes color depending on the soap you wash it with.

    • Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Scrameustache (459504) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:30PM (#14057803) Homepage Journal
      That being said, this is EXCELLENT. Imagine possibilities like clothing that changes color depending on the soap you wash it with.

      Imagine?

      Ask your mom to put some bleach in your next color's wash, it's FUN! ;- )
    • Imagine possibilities like clothing that changes color depending on the soap you wash it with.

      Step 1: Dye
      Step 2: Bleach
      Step 3: Rinse and repeat

      And for hippies Step 1a is unmissable : Tie dye.

    • Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:5, Funny)

      by moosesocks (264553) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:50PM (#14057967) Homepage
      According to the article, he initially tried using nitric acid to color the bubbles because of its red color.

      The fact that he thought he could sell nitric acid as a child's toy I believe qualifies him as being legitimately crazy.

      • Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mr2cents (323101) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:03PM (#14058064)
        I liked the exploding bubble. The article didn't say much about it, but my guess is that it might have been nitric acid reacting with glycerin (producing .. nitroglycerin!). Glycerin is often used for making bubbles, it allows them to grow larger.

        I did some experiments trying to create nitroglycerin when I was 17, but later I learned that the nitric acid sold commercially contain chemicals that inhibit the reaction (the bastards!). Maybe the guy found a way to inhibit the inhibitor?

          • Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Mr2cents (323101) on Thursday November 17 2005, @09:50PM (#14059468)
            The tests I did was with nitric and sulphuric acid mixed together. The sulphuric acid's role was indeed to boost the reaction. But if my understanding is correct, the nitric acid alone can also form nitroglycerin, just less, and it's slower. It could be enough to produce an audible bang.

            • Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! (Score:5, Interesting)

              by Muhammar (659468) on Thursday November 17 2005, @11:20PM (#14059982)
              Here is how you can make exploding bubbles by yourself:
              1.Get the bubble toy solution.
              2. Get the acetylene/oxygen welding torch to blow them.
              3. make these suckerz and ignite with a long twig

              (you do not turn the flame on when using the torch, of course).

              This explosive gas mixture trick works with hydrogen/oxygen also (and you get lighter-than-air floating bubbles) but acetylene+oxygen gives *much* stronger bang for the volume. Once we filled modest-size thrashbag with the mix and it cracked the window (and our eardrums) - and yes, we were standing on the veranda outside the house.

      • MSDS? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by iamlucky13 (795185) on Thursday November 17 2005, @11:25PM (#14060015)
        Let's just hope we don't find out this sweet stuff causes cancer 6 months after it hits the market. : (

        He needs to get his act in gear and make bouncing bubbles. That sounded almost equally as cool.
    • The main character in the story, Tim Kehoe, spent years mixing dyes with soap in his kitchen and blowing bubbles with it. Nothing worked.

      After ten years of almost entirely unsuccessful tinkering, he got some financial backing and finally employed a guy with a PhD. in dye chemistry to work on the problem - who apparently cracked it by synthesising an unusual molecule called a 'lactone ring' - something Kehoe would never have created in a lifetime of messing about in the kitchen.

      The '11-year quest' mak
      • True it was the Indian chemist who did the final version of the bubbles (quite impressive work too - managed to do it within a year). I think few chemists would be able to do that sort of thing.

        But this guy had the idea, AND the persistence, AND the luck to get the financing.

        Otherwise the Indian chemist might be doing other stuff rather than bubbles.

        So what if you're brilliant AND have the idea, if you can't get any money to pull the idea into reality, the idea just stays an idea.

        Or if you're brilliant, but

  • Giggling Geek (Score:5, Funny)

    by dada21 (163177) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:22PM (#14057733) Homepage Journal
    My broad just told me I was smiling like a freak and asked what was so happy-inspiring.

    Who would have guessed bubbles can make a grown man giggle still?

    Great story. I digg.

    • Re:Giggling Geek (Score:4, Funny)

      by rbarreira (836272) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:38PM (#14057869) Homepage
      My broad just told me I was smiling like a freak and asked what was so happy-inspiring.

      Who would have guessed bubbles can make a grown man giggle still?

      Well, I guess you're using the expression "grown man" in the broad sense...
    • FWIW, does anyone see this story as actually a decent rated-G Hollywood movie? I'm sure you'd need some artistic license, but the entire time reading it I was wishing that I had actual footage of some of the experimenting. A real life Willy Wonka sort of movie.

  • Really? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SpiritGod21 (884402) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:22PM (#14057735) Homepage
    I can think of all kinds of chemicals (ingredients cheaply purchased at your local supermarket) that can make one see all kinds of different coloured bubbles...

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by ApuD2 (929032) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:23PM (#14057738)
    "...Chemical burns, ruined clothes, 11 years, half a million dollars..."
    Sounds like Michael Jackson's life story.
  • Is sane capitlists will profit immensely on this lunatic who spent a good ammount of his life doing that. Soon you can see colored bubble bath and whatever else bubbles come in.

  • Wow, awesome. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:27PM (#14057781)

    "Chemical burns, ruined clothes, 11 years, half a million dollars--it's not easy to improve the world's most popular toy."

    And yet, that never stops people from trying [wikipedia.org], does it?

    (Posted anon because I would like to have a political career someday)

  • I'm deeply concerned about the rapid decline of species, about global warming, the limping economy, political corruption, the war in Iraq and the ever-shortening attention spans of

    OOH! COOL! COLORFUL BUBBLES!!

  • Whole article (Score:4, Informative)

    by Toothpick (23095) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:37PM (#14057861)
    http://www.popsci.com/popsci/printerfriendly/scien ce/0a03b5108e097010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html [popsci.com]

    Printer (and user) friendly!
  • We have a number of kinds of molecules that change color when heated... eg. mood rings [wikipedia.org] or thermal printers [wikipedia.org]. Are the colored bubbles different in that the process is irreversible? Or, what is the new development?

  • I actually.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chickenofbristol55 (884806) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:39PM (#14057889) Homepage
    am a subscriber to popular science, so I read this article about a week ago. In the article it was kind of silly, because it was in the section of the "best of 2005", along with a super-advanced bionic arm, and the like. While it's a cool idea, it isn't even practical or useful (even as a form of entertainment). Here's how I think it went:

    Scientist 1 "Haha! I have done it!"

    Scientist 2 "What? Cured cancer...AIDS!?"

    Scientist 1 "No, much better!"

    Scientist 2 "Really? OMG What is it?!"

    Scientist 1 "I have created..... the first coloured bubble!!!"

    Scientist 2 "Your're a real jerk, Mark"

    Scientist 1 "True, but look at the pretty colours!"

    • Re:I actually.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by fliplap (113705) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:10PM (#14058141) Homepage Journal
      Ok, apparently you didn't read the entire article then. Turn to page 130 and the last 2 paragraphs of the article.

      Other things they're thinking of:
      Finger paints that fade from everything but a special paper.
      Vanishing hair dye
      Disappearing graffiti spray paint
      Toothpaste that turns a kids mouth pink until he's brushed for 30 seconds and soap that does the same
      A swiffer type mop that dyes where you've already mopped
      A wall paint that lets you test paint colors
    • ... some of them very much non-entertainment.

      Um, from TFA:

      "When Kehoe isn't blowing bubbles for businessmen, he's at home inventing again, coming up with new uses for the disappearing dye, the importance of which is hard to overstate. For decades, the color industry has been focused entirely on color fastness. No one has really thought about the potential of temporary color. That the dye was created for children's bubbles may turn out to be just a footnote, a funny story Sabnis tells at color-chemist conven

  • Video (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mard (614649) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:43PM (#14057914)
    There is video of children playing with the bubbles on the company's website:
    http://www.zubbles.com/gallery/index.asp [zubbles.com]

    Screw Hurricane Katrina, somebody make this guy Person of the Year.

  • Company website (Score:4, Informative)

    by Scutter (18425) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:44PM (#14057922) Journal
    Allegedly due out in February (not Real Soon Now) according to the article. Check out the awesome video on their website [nyud.net]. (coral cached. Actual site is http://www.zubbles.com/ [zubbles.com]

  • it's the diappearing part that's hard (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lashi (822466) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:44PM (#14057929) Homepage
    If you read TFA, it's not making coloured bubles that's hard, it's making the colour diappear that's hard.

    His first coloured bubbles stained clothes, people, pets and everything else, and horrified parents even though the dyes were washable. It took him another nine years to come up with bubbles with disappearing colour which will have implication on a lot of other fields beside toys. Security for example.

  • Noxious gases? (Score:3, Funny)

    by whitehatlurker (867714) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:53PM (#14057985) Journal
    He's had to evacuate his family because he filled the house with noxious fumes.

    Beans at the Kehoes' for supper, again?

  • Patent or trade secret? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Isaac-Lew (623) <isaaclew@gma i l . c om> on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:59PM (#14058020)
    From TFA:

    As Popular Science went to press, Kehoe was looking for a partner with a factory that could keep the formula secret and crank out a million units in six weeks.

    Did he patent [wikipedia.org] the formula or is it a trade secret [wikipedia.org]? The article implies the latter, but a trade secret wouldn't make any sense to me (all you'd need is a reasonably competent chemist to reverse-engineer the formula).

    • all you'd need is a reasonably competent chemist to reverse-engineer the formula)

      Although you seem to have read the article, you also seem to have missed a few key points:

      From TFA:

      • "Ram Sabnis is a leader among a very small group of people who can point to a dye-chemistry Ph.D. on their wall."
      • "'What Ram did was an extremely difficult bit of chemistry,' [says Darlene Carlson, a former 3M chemist]."
      • "'Nobody has made this chemistry before,' Sabnis says. 'All these molecules--we will make 200 or 300 to co

  • FOR HOW HE DOES IT... (Score:3, Informative)

    by MLopat (848735) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:08PM (#14058120) Homepage
    ...Goto page 10 of 11 to save yourself from the extensive history of bubbles and toy manufacturing.

  • This is what science is all about: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mblase (200735) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:11PM (#14058155)
    Like Kehoe, Sabnis doesn't seem to consider the possibility that a problem can't be solved.

    I love that one sentence. More than anything else, this one philosophy is what has led one person after another to change the world, even if it's just in the temporary-dye business.

    Good for these guys.

  • Amazing range of experimental ingredients... (Score:5, Funny)

    by suitepotato (863945) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:18PM (#14058238)
    Tim Kehoe has stained the whites of his eyes deep blue.

    It seems he even tried using melange. I am impressed.

  • 50 year old news? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 (561790) on Thursday November 17 2005, @07:29PM (#14058344)
    How is this different from disappearing ink?

    I also remember a toy watergun called "Zap It" that used a richly-colored dye instead of water. You'd spray it on people's clothes, but in a few minutes the "stain" was gone.
    • It's not just about disappearing dye, it's also about the dye binding correctly with the surfactant so that the bubble appears uniformly coloured. Also, doesn't disappearing ink have to dry first??

  • Blue eyes (Score:5, Funny)

    by JazMuadDib (600258) on Thursday November 17 2005, @09:09PM (#14059178)
    Come ON you guys. The man turned the whites of his eyes blue. BLUE. And you think of bubbles! For shame! Have you not considered that he may be the Kwisatz Haderach?

  • Um what about the chemist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by syousef (465911) on Thursday November 17 2005, @10:09PM (#14059593) Journal
    Personally my respect goes to the chemist that solved the problem. Not the compulsive nut job that couldn't repeat anything because he didn't keep proper notes and who had to throw a massive party and cover everyone with colour to realise they'd freak out if you did that.
    • There are about five paragraphs on each and every one of those pages. Anything more is unweildly and really annoying.

      • Re:Huh?? There are five paragraphs on each page (Score:5, Informative)

        by interiot (50685) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:42PM (#14057910) Homepage
        Yes, "one paragraph" was an exageration. But it's spread over 11 pages, and most of the paragraphs are simply gush with no content. For those who just want the meat, the whole story can basically be boiled down to:
        Kehoe made a bubble like that when he was 26, after only two years of trashed countertops and chemical fires. He showed it to toy-company executives, who called it a "holy grail." And then it broke, as bubbles always do. And when it did, the dye inside escaped onto clothes and carpets and walls and skin, staining everything it touched. The execs told him to come back with a bubble they could wash off their boardroom table.

        The breakthrough finally happened in an empty lab in Minneapolis on a Sunday this past February. As with Kehoe's first bubble, it arose from the slow, subtle refinement of a process over thousands of experiments. But Sabnis could re-create it. He synthesized a dye that would bond to the surfactants in a bubble to give it bright, vivid color but would also lose its color with friction, water or exposure to air--not fade, not transfer to something else, but go away completely, as though it had never been there. When one of these bubbles breaks on your hand, rub your hands together a few times and look: Poof. Magic. No more color. If the bubble breaks on your shirt or the carpet or the dog, you have two choices: Dab it with a touch of plain water to remove it immediately, or forget about it for half an hour. Either way, the color will soon be gone.

        Sabnis's solution was to build a dye molecule from an unstable base structure called a lactone [wikipedia.org] ring that functions much like a box. When the ring is open, the molecule absorbs all visible light save for one color--the color of the bubble. But add air, water or pressure, and the box closes, changing the molecule's structure so that it lets visible light pass straight through. Sabnis builds each hue by adding different chemical groups onto this base.

      • Like a man made rainbow, practical jokes that only last 30 seconds. Truly impressive, though I wonder what the cost of the chemical reagents required is, lactone rings are fairly expensive to synthesize if I recall my organic chemistry correctly.

    • Not a dupe. (Score:4, Informative)

      by technoextreme (885694) on Thursday November 17 2005, @06:32PM (#14057819)
      Yeah. The two articles are not the same despite being from the same magazine. The one that you just mentioned was a one paragraph blurb. This article is a full fledged story.
    • If you'll RTFA, you'll discover that Kehoe had a breakthrough of his own some time earler: he found how to bind the dye to the surficant layer so that it didn't pool in the bottom of the bubble. Without that it wouldn't matter what dye you used; you couldn't have colored bubbles.

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