Let’s assume the average American bathtub is 60 inches long by 30 inches wide, and holds about 50 gallons of water. Let’s also go ahead and say that we’re going to use specifically Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath, “America’s favorite bathtime buddy,” which cites two ounces as the ideal amount of bubble bath for achieving a bathtub full of bubbles.
We all know water covers about 70% of the earth’s surface, but how much water is that? Well, about 97% of that is in our oceans, leaving 2% that is trapped, frozen in glaciers, and 1% that accounts for all our freshwater that we as living things use to survive everyday. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the ocean contains 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water! So how much bubble bath do we need to get that nice and sudsy?
So we need to convert those gallons into ounces:
352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gal * 2 oz
1 50 gal
Cancel out the gallons, and multiply like fractions, top with top, bottom with bottom.
7.0534 * 1020 oz
50
Divide and come out with:
1.41068 * 1019 oz divided by 128 oz = 1.1020938 * 1017 gal (because 1 gal = 128 oz)
So it would take 110,209,380,000,000,000 gallons of Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath to fill the ocean! If we actually poured bubble bath into the ocean, it would harm mostly sensitive coral populations as well as more general fish populations and the wildlife that feed on those fish, including humans. So if ever that amount of bubble bath exists on this planet, use it wisely!
