Surface Tension

We're big fans of kitchen table science around here: building circuits with play dough, and messing about with oobleck, and soda and vinegar volcanoes, and laser microscopes, and the like...

This was a little science experiment that the smalls and I did way back one sunny February afternoon, investigating the surface tension of milk and how that changes when the fat molecules are bound up by dish detergent.

While ours was not as spectacular as it might have been, I've since heard a detail that might make it more impressive the next time we try.

It still made a nice rainbow in our milk, and we had fun drinking our afternoon tea and watching the colors swirl, as you can see.

 Here is a how-to that I just stumbled across, including the tip about using a toothpick or q-tip.