Winter Fun

I was reading today when the image of the lady and her child blowing bubbles in the snow brought me down memory lane.

Many years ago at a backyard bbq (Summer in Southern Cal - hot and dry), I sat around blowing bubbles with the kids. The ambient air was so hot and dry that the water evaporated from the bubbles before they had floated ten feet. The remnants were a soap bubble with no water. It was the strangest thing. We marveled at it and were amazed by it. End of story.

I was reading this week about the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. One of my favorite writers (Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online) was over there and he remarked that he was taking a walk and noticed a Swiss mom and her child blowing bubbles in the snow. It reminded me of my times with my own children. And then I pondered what would happen if you blew bubbles in sub-freezing temperatures? Would the moisture freeze and would you have these thin balls of ice? Forgive my ignorance, but this southern California boy doesn't get to the sub-freezing temps very often. But next time I do, I will bring some bubbles with me, just to see what happens.

A friend of mine at work (a Wisconsin native and transplant to So. Cal) has promised to take the challenge to ask her sister to have her children try this experiment. She seems to think the same thing will happen because of the dry weather in winter. We shall see. She also suggested that I ask my son to take the experiment to his science teacher and that maybe they could set up a web cast with some school in Wisconsin. They could do the experiment and his class could watch from Sunny California. I will plant the seed and see what happens.

(NOTE: I remember hearing a story about if you drink coffee in a real cold climate sometimes, depending on the temperature, you can take the coffee and throw it in the air and it will freeze before it hits the ground. I think it would have to be pretty cold.)

D.