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Video20 Feb 2024Bubbles & thin filmsLight & strobesRigs & DIY

Cymatics inside a soap bubble, lit by two rings above

Zulu Cymatics stretches a soap film over a speaker and lights it from overhead with one coloured ring and one white, which is what makes the pattern readable.

Watch on YouTube ↗Zulu Cymatics · Zulu Cymatics · 2 min

A soap film on a speaker is the thinnest membrane you can drive, and it shows Faraday-type surface modes that a rigid plate cannot. The catch is that a bubble is nearly invisible without the right light, and this video is explicit about the solution: two rings above the vessel, one coloured and one white. The description also gives the film recipe — water, glycerine and soap, mixed for durability — and notes the torus form was produced at 30 Hz with the volume balanced by ear.

At ninety seconds it is a result rather than a build, but the two variables that matter most for anyone attempting this — film chemistry and overhead ring lighting — are both stated.

The channel states there is no CGI and no computer, only a camera. That is worth flagging in a field where a lot of similar footage is rendered.

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