I enjoy the beauty of the bubble, they're fluid and yet they have these geometric shapes so they do surprising things - two spheres become a single sphere - it's what bubbles do.
Tom Noddy
It's an electrical network, isn't it? It's molecules in space... and they're linked to each other electrically. Which is to say, one end of a soap molecule is attracted to a nearby water molecule electrically. The bubble is this network. The whole thing is inter-dependent.
I tried to do a puppet show on the streets, and I wasn't a very good street performer. But I found that I could stand in one place in Central Park and bounce a soap bubble on my arm, and I didn't have to gather a crowd for the puppet show. I had a crowd.
I had this memory of being with my aunt, who I loved, you know, and watching her blow some bubbles in sunlight, and my heart fluttered when I watched her.
I took a job at a factory in New Jersey to try to save money to go to Europe. When I took the job, I set a date for quitting. I was going to hitchhike around, be a hippie, see the world. I just wanted to be responsible long enough to get up the money to get there and trip around.
There is a dream on the street. I hear it constantly - finding a piece of land, raising food, building a house. I hear talk of hopelessness. The price of land, you know. Housing is impossible. They are trapped in a cycle. How can you ask for a job after you've been sleeping in the bushes all night?
There is a lot of science in bubbles. They are just like our weather system. The earth is, in effect, trapped inside a liquid sphere, the troposphere, where our weather forms. The bright colors on the outside of a bubble are just varying thicknesses of bubble, just like the varying thicknesses of clouds.
First I got a yo-yo. I got good and then I got bored. Next I got one of those wooden paddles with a rubber ball at the end of an elastic band. I got good and then I got bored. Then I tried bubbles. I got good but I never got bored.
There's a brand, Mr. Bubble, that is sometimes called other things, like Mickey Mouse or other names. That's the stuff I use.
Bubbles are round for the same reason that planets are spherical. The universe itself is like bubbles.
If you stare at suds, you'll go crazy. But in soap suds, you'll find bubble cubes and many other forms. I just take those things, magnify them and sometimes blow smoke inside it so you can see it better.
On good days, I've done bubbles with as many as 38 faces - a row of pentagons, a row of hexagons, and another row of pentagons on bottom.
Bubbles are incredibly basic. We think of them in that way just because they're a kid's toy. But I think it's more basic than childhood, something primal - the liquid, the flow, the shapes. We were liquid at one point in our development.
When I do the dodecahedron with the science audiences, I'll point out that I can only do three of the five forms with bubbles, since bubbles only join at three-way corners. The two I can't do are the ones that represent water and air. That always gets a big laugh from the mathematicians. They see the irony in it.
If you look at the Karamazov Brothers on TV, they're really small and the heart is taken out of their act. That's true for most variety acts. I'm an exception. When the camera comes in close and looks at those soap bubbles, you can really see what bubbles do.
I'd do the Mount St. Helen's trick, where the smoke comes out of the top. I wouldn't even have to look at people. I'd hear that 'Ahhhh!'
I am not too interested in leaving the street people and joining the Establishment. I prefer street folks.
If you look at the soap bubbles in the sink when you're doing dishes, you'll see the incredible diversity of shapes in there. There are cubes in there; there are decahedrons and tetrahedrons; there are odd, irregular shapes without names, you know.
I worked in a factory for 10 months with the aim of going traveling in Europe. I bought a bottle of bubble stuff and spent every night playing with bubbles. After 10 months, I went to Europe and did bubble shows on the street.
I was never very good at stopping crowds. I started blowing bubbles to attract people.
I've never blown an ugly bubble. Never. They're all beautiful. They're like jewels, transient jewels.
I've been called a career hippie. I like that, I like that a lot.
I love to make a living from blowing bubbles.
Bubbles only break for a few different reasons, so if I can avoid those things, I can get a lot of things to happen.
I didn't want to go out at night and spend my money in bars and stuff like that, so when I came home at night, I just wanted to entertain myself.
The bubbles are thinner than wavelengths of light.
I have no time for a vacation.
Bubbles are one of the few things in life that we are allowed to break.
Bubbles are very simplified versions of some of the basic laws of the universe.
I was one of the poorest people in America.
I'm just a guy entertaining people and telling the truth and teaching them science.
I was really inspired by keeping alive these things of my childhood.
Bubbles are weird things. They're not fragile. They're infinitely flexible. They're not what we think they are.
When I blow the head off a glass of Guinness or eat a slice of white bread, there are so many bubbles!
We thought we completely understood bubbles when we were kids. But we didn't. Bubbles are these amazing things. It's just that people aren't paying enough attention.
I walked the rainbow trail for a good number of years.
There's never an ugly bubble.
Bubbles have more colors than a rainbow.
When I went to college, I majored in anti-war demonstrations, you know? I mean, really!
My initial attraction was just the beauty. The colors were so beautiful, the spheres were so nearly perfect.
Bubbles are just a little liquid soap and a breath of air.
I use ordinary soap bubbles, the dime-store stuff, two wands and a plastic straw.
Bubble cubes are central to what I do.
At 20 years old, I was better at playing with toys than I was as a kid.
Bubbles are always new; you just can't find an old bubble.
The mid '70s was the golden age. A lot of things were being born on the street then, and there was a lot of experimentation.
I ended up living on Crete for eight months. I picked olives and did house painting and got broke.
I needed to entertain myself at home nights... I got a jar of bubbles.
I think the best thing about a bubble is that it pops and is gone. That is what makes it so precious.
I had dropped out of Memphis State University after two years because I felt the real world was too exciting.
