Chapter 17 DS summary

Not every scientific discovery has been exotic though. While at a pub in 1952, Glaser developed a theory about bubbles and tracking their movements. He first tried this in the lab with beers, although quickly switched to liquid hydrogen. Bubbles provide an excellent "net" across a large variety of lab experiments. Calcium, for instance, foams up and that principle has been instrumental in both the formation of limestone and the subsequent histories that go along with the existence of limestone caves etc. Scientists have often developed theories about specific bubbles in specific situations but scorned the study of them itself. Rutherford used bubbles to study radioactivity and develop the theory about alpha and beta decay. This idea about decay led to a much more accurate estimation of the age of the earth. During WWII Lord Rauleigh discovered that submarine propellers were being eaten away by the bubbles they were creating. Putterman found that sound waves can transmute bubbles into light, especially with noble gases in a study called sonoluminescence.