Math Faculty Member Creates Bubble Therapy in a Soap Bottle
Igor Kliakhandler got the
idea for his latest invention while doing the laundry.
Our baby was two-months
old, and I was supposed to load our washing machine," says Kliakhandler,
an assistant professor in the mathematical sciences department.
Instead, he got sidetracked. "I started playing with the soap, turning
the bottle upside down, watching the bubbles going from the bottom to
the top."
Kliakhandler finished the laundry, but he didn't stop playing with the
soap. "I was thinking, why not pass air through the it? So I did
it, and it worked instantaneously."
What worked was the "Continuous Chain of Bubbles," a descriptive
but pedestrian name (now filed in the U.S. Patent Office) for a elegant
little device that can transport you from the hard-driving left side of
your brain to the easy-going right in about two seconds.
"It's a toy," said Kliakhandler, as he sets up a high-tech apparatus
consisting of a $3.49 jug of Walmart liquid hand soap, an aquarium pump
and a couple feet of tubing with a special nozzle. Air flows from the
pump through the tubing and out the nozzle, which is resting on the bottom
of the soap bottle. From there, it forms that chain of bubbles.
The term doesn't quite do it justice. It looks more like a stream of pearls
floating up through a peachy, opalescent sea. You could stare at it for
hours, completely forgetting about the importance of writing stories about
inventions for Tech Topics. . .
"You like it?" Kliakhandler asks. "It's fantastic luck
to find a simple system like this. Everything today is so complicated."
Kliakhandler is interested in the logic behind his system and is pursuing
a research grant to discover its mathematics--why the bubbles tend to
form such a perfect line from the bottom of the soap bottle to the surface.
And with lights, colors and a somewhat more integrated design, this little
toy could find its way onto the desks of a whole new generation of college
students.
"It's very therapeutic," said Jim Baker, director of technology
partnerships. "We're looking at licensing it as a novelty product,
like the lava lamp." ####
12/14/01
