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Mad Scientist Invents Colored Bubbles

Posted by Zonk on from the bubbles-make-the-heart-float dept.

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.'"

12 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. He's not a Mad Scientist! by Knight+Thrasher · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    1. Re:He's not a Mad Scientist! by xSauronx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      my brother is a hippie and those bastards are far too lazy to re-dye everything every 45 minutes, considering they have to wear it for days at a time. nice try.

      --
      By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
  2. The ironic thing by external400kdiskette · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Giggling Geek by dada21 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  4. it's the diappearing part that's hard by lashi · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

  5. This is what science is all about: by mblase · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Giggling Geek by georgewad · · Score: 2, Insightful

    like the Hudsucker Proxy
    "you know, for kids!"

    --
    Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
  7. The ignorant thing by earnest+murderer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From TFA: The inventor is a 50% stakeholder in the company.

    Read the thing, it's interesting. Really.

    --
    Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
  8. Um what about the chemist by syousef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Um what about the chemist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      i agree with you, but there are two things in favor of the inventor:
      -he did spend 11 years working on it, and got the funding, idea,....
      -as also stated in the article, if it weren't for the inventors numerous experiments, the dye of the chemist would just sink to the bottom of the bubble (if he would have invented it without someone trying to make colored bubbles)

      it's kind of like who gets the credit? the one who made the nice paint, or the painter of the painting who managed to do something nice with it...

      it might be some impressive paint, but without the painter there would be neither idea, initiative or funding.
      and it would still have been impossible to use in bubbles without his knowledge either...

  9. MSDS? by iamlucky13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  10. Well he had drive and managed to get money by TheLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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 you have no ideas in that particular field. While you might be able to think of millions of ways of creating dyes (which might impress chemists in other fields), but that's different from thinking of things that could impress kids and toy manufacturers.

    Without that particular team of people, there wouldn't be these coloured bubbles.

    And interesting dye tech too.

    Does it by absorbing light though.

    I wonder if they can make bubbles which have intense iridescent colours. While normal soap bubbles do already get colours from iridescence, they don't really have intense colours. You might be able to also have something that washes away easily or that is fairly transparent - after all it probably won't be a "normal" dye - it'll be thin layers of transparent refractory stuff.

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