Scientists Use Sound To Project Images on Screens Made of Soap Bubbles
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Posted Monday, July 2, 2012, at 11:20 PM
Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
TV broken? Good news: You might soon be able to just fire up your incredible transparent soap-bubble screen, available in 2-D, 3-D, and holographic formats.
An international team of researchers at the University of Tokyo has created a display that projects images onto screen made out of sturdy soap film. Using ultrasonic sound waves played through speakers at different frequencies, the scientists were able to create what’s called a bidirectional reflectance distribution function—a way to control the level of transparency of the micro membrane.
The result is a screen that lead researcher Dr. Yoichi Ochiai says opens up a new frontier the projection of flexible, sharp images. Several screens put together can create 3-D and holographic projections.
You can’t buy it at the store anytime soon; this bubbly screen mixture is made up of mostly dish soap, but it features special colloids, allowing items to pass through the screen without it popping. Mike Teavee would be so jealous.
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