WASHINGTON: If you thought blowing bubbles brings you joy, wait to you see bubbles form from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to produce bubbles that are in sync with Beethoven’s popular “Symphony No. 9: Ode to Joy.”
While the performance—called “Ode to Bubbles”—is impressive in itself, there is actually some real science behind the musical bubbles. The researchers developed a new method of turning bubbles on and off on demand in under less than a second when they form on a boiling surface.
MIT Researchers H. Jeremy Cho, Jordan P. Mizerak, and Evelyn N. Wang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering have discovered the method of controlling bubble formation, publishing their research in a recent issue of Nature Communications.
The researchers added a small amount of charged particles to water in a container that has a silver foil surface at its bottom at its boiling point, applying a weak voltage that sparked bubble nucleation in the particles with a positive charge, and suppressed bubble nucleation in the particles that were negatively charged.
As a result, the method allowed them to control the bubbles without changing the heat. This is because the particles feature carbon tails that repel water, so when they move along the foil, they make the surface more hydrophobic, which then makes it easier for the bubbles to form.
The researchers were then able to build a boiling surface to act as a bubble piano that consists of eight separate electrodes to account for eight piano keys. By adding voltage to move particles across the surface, bubbles were able to form in sync with the symphony.
