Modern Bubble Technology

Bubbles are a transient film of water with great strength and flexibility, slice one and hey Presto! You have two.

They can entice you to follow and then Pop! Their gone, invisible, leaving you stranded. They have no sense of responsibility or conscience, totally immoral. They of course have their use when in Saunas or soft drinks, they can massage your sore muscles or the deeper reaches of your innards.

This doesn’t excuse the fact that they are totally undependable and irresponsible, they think of no one but themselves. They will let you down quicker than Irish Permanent will raise mortgages. 

There are of course different types of bubbles, economic or price bubbles, which sometimes burst with unintended consequences. Some of them appear with air in water, gas or other liquids like Guinness and soft drinks. We can also have bubbles of emotion which sometimes leads to people making rash promises or regrettable threats.

The ability to float is important, as we don’t want them to float for a second or two, then! Plop. They burst and disappear, leaving you and me, abandoned, isolated, alone.  One way I’ve learned to overcome the burst bubble is to wear gloves that are oil based, as bubbles don’t burst when they land on oil.

A real bubble must be lighter than air and the higher and longer it can float the better. It may in time prove possible to clone a bubble, taking the best attributes and creating the perfect one. A stem cell from the perfect bubble would create a lifetime supply of ‘Perfect Bubbles’.

There is a perception that bubbles have to be round but is this really the case? I accept that they are more aerodynamically suitable if they have a rotund shape. Could we have square one or maybe rectangles in the future? The one I would like to see is the triangular bubble, why not, watch this space, in fact any space.

We may in time find other uses for bubbles, like floating opium dens, with the residue of the pipe held within the bubble creating double the effect. There could be green and health benefits from the reduced need for the poppy seed.  Of course people can and probably will abuse this and use more but you can hardly blame the bubble.

While a floating bubble may benefit from its circular shape, it would be easier to sit, lie down and relax if the bubble had a different shape. In fact a triangular one could be quite comfortable.  There could be a compromise by having a half round roof designed to act as a solar panel giving us water and heat when needed.  This could be tied to the national grid, producing heat and electricity.

In case you’re wondering where the water would come from, apart from the bubble being itself water, there would be water traps around the edge of the roof. This is where the stem cell and other research come in, shaping bubbles to our needs. Some of us may need bubbles that float long distance or reach great heights.

We may need one where we can sit, have a few drinks, maybe barbeque a few steaks, watch television. You can see how useful a bubble can be, if it is developed and I haven’t even broached the idea of how to hang a plasma screen while touring.

I should point out at this time, that all these ideas are possible without the use of fossil fuels and totally green in essence and practice.  A green bubble would certainly appeal to the ‘Greens’ , if you pardon the pun.

On another occasion I will explore the concept of ‘Pun’ free bubbles but for the moment we will stick to the issue at hand, bubbles that have a practical application in a modern society.

We need to focus on ones that can be controlled, at the moment they are like women, attractive but all over the place. We need one that the we can sit on and impregnate their thin outer film when its raining, for shelter.

Imagine the consequences of sitting on a bubble in a rain storm, not a pretty sight. Not harmful on the ground but imagine if you were floating at one thousand feet, shudder! You could be let down hard.

We need strong ones, with strength and accessibility along with green credentials, so we won’t be levied to the hilt with travel taxes and fuel surcharges.

They could also be useful as restaurants, well! The square and rectangular one’s could be, as they would be free from rates and other charges imposed by councils for leaving seats and tables outside. On the pavement. This may entail linking  two or more together, with corridor access between them, a bit like a train. Yes! A bubble train, what a good idea. The more I think of this, bubbles could be the answer to a lot of the world’s problems.

A bubble bar, shurly one wouldn’t be expected to apply for a liquor licence to run a floating pub. They don’t charge for boats on the canal or crossing the Irish sea.

Night clubs wouldn’t be expected to close at two thirty am as at present, would they? We wouldn’t need taxi’s as we would just hop off our floating club/pub/shopping centre as it passes our house, which itself will probably be a bubble.

We could have a range of flat pack bubbles from ‘Ikea’ which could be delivered in a square container type bubble. Just think what this could do for the housing crises at the moment.  They could even be delivered to Calais or Germany and relieve the immigration crisis.

We shouldn’t forget speech and laughter bubbles, these are generally used in cartoons and can deliver very strong messages, often political. They can and often do, deliver messages that humans struggle with.

Hurling in a bubble could be interesting and exciting, once the outer film was strong enough to contain the ‘Sliothar’ as we all watch from our bubbles floating outside the arena bubble. (See below) Just imagine a sliothar travelling at speed, say one hundred miles an hour, crossing the bar for a point, hitting a thin outer film as the crowd, ensconced in the safety of their own bubbles, gasp as it hits the outer film, testing its strength, creating a bulbous effect, for a brief moment, before the sliothar is fired back, into play at a speed equal to a Boeing 207 at its best.

This of course can be used to keep the game flowing, even faster than it is at the moment, as the players would be expected to resume play as soon as the sliothar re-entered the playing area. The normal puck-out would be used where the Sliothar failed to come in contact with the outer film.

On the serious side, scientists at Oxford University are trying to harness the energy released when bubbles collapse as a way of killing cancerous cells. They have built a device to beam ultrasounds into the body, generating bubbles at the site of the tumour. When these bubbles pop, they release energy as heat, killing rogue cells. This of course could be Cambridge or Trinity here in Ireland, as bubbles tend to move around quickly. 

The future is bright, for ‘Bubbles

Hurling is a very fast and dexterous Irish game played with a hurling stick and a ball-The ball is called a ‘Sliothar’ and the stick a 'Hurley'. Look it up an exciting game when you know the rules.

JC-Dublin-A City immersed in 'Bubble Thinking'?