Chapter 17 Summary

Chapter 17 starts out with a story about Donald Glaser, who came to the idea of using bubbles for some current experiments going on by scientists studying exotic fragments of neutrons, electrons and protons. Watching his beer glass and bubbles, Glaser was able to take part in the creation of the “bubble chamber”. 
  The chapter then moves onto smaller stories of the Roman’s love of calcium bubbles. Kean then introduces Rutherford as basically that of a troll but based on his radioactive experiments he became famous. He and another scientist, Soddy, were able to prove that elements could mutate into other elements. He then used this knowledge and discovered helium particles being produced from this decay as bubbles.try This theory then went on to be used as a dating device to help find the age of the earth by measuring the amount if helium trapped in rocks (uranium decay). The next story is then of a scientist by the name of Putterman. He had the idea of sonoluminescene work and soon began a small experiment that led to his discovery. Most of the discoveries in the later part of the chapter were based on the research of foam