A single bubble, suspended in water by sound, can flash tens of thousands of times per second. The phenomenon is called sonoluminescence: an acoustic wave makes a microscopic bubble expand, collapse and emit a pulse of light lasting only trillionths of a second. Experiments have shown temperatures around fifteen thousand kelvin and evidence of plasma inside the collapsing gas — but what happens at the very center of the bubble is still not fully understood. ─────────────────────────────── IN THIS EPISODE — How collapsing bubbles began destroying ship propellers — The experiment that trapped a single glowing bubble — How sound can compress gas into temperatures hotter than the Sun's surface — Why the true peak temperature at the center remains unknown SOURCES Nature — Barber & Putterman, 1991 Nature — Hilgenfeldt, Grossmann & Lohse, 1999 Nature — Flint & Suslick, 2005 Nature — Lohse et al., snapping shrimp cavitation research, 2001 ─────────────────────────────── Narration in this episode is AI-assisted. Research, writing, and editorial decisions are human. Reality Is Strange — real phenomena, verified, and stranger than they should be.

The Bubble That Gets Hotter Than the Sun

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