Links
Here are links to some other web sites that have to do with bubble rings, vortex rings, marine mammals and more. Scroll down to see sections titled Dolphins and Humpback Whales, Smoke Rings, Bubble Ring Devices, Soap Bubbles, Bubble Ring Art, and Other Links:
- Publicity about BubbleRings.com
- Bubble Ring photos by scuba divers
- Dolphins and Whales
- Smoke Rings
- Bubble Ring Devices & Science
- Soap Bubbles
- Bubble Ring Art
- Other Links
Publicity about BubbleRings.com
John Kelly wrote about me in the "John Kelly's Washington" column in the Washington Post on May 2 2006.
BubbleRings.com was Yahoo! Pick of the Day for March 2, 2006
The RingMachine made the cover of my home town newspaper, the Germantown Gazette. Follow the link to see the online version.
This radio show called VTR had me on as a contestant. They interview people seeking venture capital. You can hear the show online--scroll down to November 4, 2005.
I was out in LA for a little adventure, more details soon, but here is a little something about a side-adventure I had along the way.
Bubble Ring photos by scuba divers
I finally found a video of a good
ring within a ring created by a diver.
Doug Corbin of Shaka Divers Maui took this shot, and another great one
located here on his site.
He says, "I take out scuba tours daily and blow
bubblerings on almost every dive. I've photographed literally thousands of these
rings and have been fascinated by them since I first discovered how to make them
in 1981!"
Check out his site at shakadivers.com
SCUBA diver Discussion Boards
Here are two different web-based discussion boards about SCUBA diving, which both happen to have bubble ring threads going, and they include some excellent pictures. You have to register on the boards (free) to see the images.
DeeperBlue.net and ScubaBoard.com
Both discussion threads also include advice from SCUBA divers on how to learn to blow bubble rings, just like I have my own suggestions on my FAQ page, under "How do humans create bubble rings with their mouth?"
Jorgen van der Velde in the Netherlands has a web site that has some great bubble ring content. He has the single best photo of a bubble ring that I have ever seen. He has been very helpful to me. Thanks Jorgen!
Jeff Richardson sent me this photo of him blowing bubble rings while free diving. (No scuba tank, just holding his breath and swimming down to the bottom.) Click either photo for the full-sized version, and check out where the two rings are bending around each other.
Philip Fay has some great scuba diving bubble ring movies for sale. Click either image for a free preview!
Here's a bubble ring about to
crash harmlessly into a sea turtle.
(Find out more at Jack's Diving Locker in Hawaii)
This photo was taken by Chris from LetsDiveGuam.com, but that's not Chris in the picture. Click on the photo for full-size version.
A message from Chris of LetsDiveGuam.com on how to create bubble rings.
D. Kyle Guinn here of the Tulsa, OK Zoo is testing one of my prototypes as an enrichment device with the sharks he cares for.
Miscelanous Scuba-related:
- Larry Gate's web site
- Another diving shot
- Here's a web ring about underwater photography
- The oldest photograph of a bubble ring that I have been able to find is in the September 1982 National Geographic. I don't have a link for you here, but it was on page 391. Here's the National Geographic web site though.
Dolphins and Whales
- The National Aquarium in Baltimore has great info on dolphins in general. Here is a page they have about their dolphin enrichment program.
- The organization Earthtrust in Hawaii--Ken Marten and Don White. They had some dolphins there that learned how to blow bubble rings, and they captured it on video. There are still frames on their web site EarthTrust.org, and a few more still frames at 21stCenturyHawaii.com.
- An IMAX movie called Dolphins is now available on DVD, at www.dolphinsfilm.com.
- Dean Bernal at www.jojodolphin.org is the human half of what is surely the world's best known dolphin/human friendship.
- A nice page on humpback whales bubble net behavior.
- An aerial photo of a humpback whale bubble net.
- More dolphin bubble ring stuff at a web site called Ocean Inspirations.
- A good Dolphin FAQ.
- The Animal Behavior Management Alliance is made up of some of the greatest people you could ever meet. I'll write more on this group soon I hope.
- The Hawaii article—PubMed reference.
- This web site is sort of 'out there.' It mentions how beluga whales have been seen blowing bubble rings, which I would like to learn more about. I specifically heard about the belugas at the aquarium in Vancuver, CA, showing the behavior frequently. Here's all I know so far: beluga and "bubble rings" on Google.
The underside of Thorn's tail. (It's how people tell humpbacks apart.)
Thorn surfacing in the middle of a bubble ring he just blew.
Dan Knaub of The Whale Video Company let me know about a humpback whale by the name of Thorn that has been filmed blowing the biggest bubble rings you could imagine. They sell a video that shows it called Beyond Belief, and it is excellent.
The bubble rings that he blows are amazing—they must be 20 or 30 feet in diameter! I'm trying to learn more about Thorn—in particular, I'd like to find a list of places and times he has been sighted. Dan says his mother was Ebony. Does anyone know more?
Click on either of these two images to see a larger version.
Also check the video clip Humpback Bubble Rings on my video page.
Aliya, a Beluga whale at an aquarium in Japan, has learned to blow bubble rings to order.
Smoke Rings
- Bill Grundmann has instructions here on how to make a device that creates 3 foot smoke rings. Bill dropped me a line, and says "Your product sounds awesome! Best of luck to you. Thanks for referring to my page."
- The volcano known as Etna blowing a smoke ring! More on the volcano here on the BBC News website.
- An artist named Donald Sultan has created a number of pieces of art based on photographs of smoke rings.
- A good amateur science page on smoke ring launchers.
- Transcript from a cool radio show on smoke ring generators.
Bubble Ring Devices & Science
- Here is a museum in in Italy that built an exhibit around one of my devices. They call it the Ciambolle machine. It looks like they did a great job on the project, I hope to stop by and visit sometime and see it in person. Bubble ring generators are also known as bubble ring emitters sometimes, by the way.
- My friend Evan of ProgressiveGardens.com showed me these two great web sites: this one that has an interactive model of a torus (you can rotate the image by clicking and dragging), and this entry in Wikipedia describing what a torus is.
- Yukio Nakajima in Japan has a web site that is way cool. My favorite picture on his web site is the "side angle view" of a bubble ring, it is a beautiful shot.
- Here's an engineering related site called the Gallery of Fluid Motion. Boy I wish I had a high speed video camera like his. The site is partially in Japanese.
- An exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco by Carl Cheng called Friendship Acrobatic Troup, which, as I understand it, creates bubble rings under computer control using compressed air and solenoids.
- Professor Donald D. Gray of West Virginia University has used one of my videos in one of his classes, and has been very kind. He's got a book out, "A First Course in Fluid Mechanics for Civil Engineers".
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Two fluid vortex rings in a fluid medium coliding, a short movie. Also see this video of two vortex rings "leapfrogging", which is great too. Both of those videos are from the web page of T. T. Lim, Ph.D in Australia.
- Here are some of the existing U.S. patents on inventions to create bubble rings:
- 5,947,784 to Cullen is for a "Apparatus for producing toroidal bubbles and method"
- 4,534,914 to Takahashi et al is for a "Method and apparatus for producing vortex rings of a gas in a liquid"
And while you're thinking about patents, go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's web site and search to see if your own great idea is taken yet.
Soap Bubbles
- Tim Kehoe has found a way to make colored soap bubbles, his product will be on the shelves soon.
- Ron Hipschman's web page is a great place to start learning about soap bubbles.
- Leona Meeks web site about bubble science for elementary school kids.
Bubble Ring Art
- Brian S. Kissinger's computer wallpaper site.
- A ray-trace guy...
Other Links
- This isn't exactly about bubble rings, but it is wild. I haven't tried the experiments myself yet, but hope to soon: Learn about Anti-Bubbles.
- Some people have a problem with their heart that causes vortex rings to form in one of the chambers. You can read about it in these abstracts on NIH's PubMed system: (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5).
- Space Shuttle flights STS-88 and STS-89 carried this experiment related to vortex rings.
- Here's a great web site on home science experiments, called TableTopExperiments.org.uk
- The Inventor's Network of the Capital Area, or INCA, is a great group of people that have been very helpful to me. Won't you come join us at the next meeting?
- Search Terms American Inventor, bubble ring, Video Gift Box, Peter Jones, Mary Lou Quinlan, Doug Hall, Ed Evangelista, Simon Cowell, Matt Gallant. (For Google's sake, here are a few of the wrong ways to spell my name: David Whitis, David Whities, David Whites.)
