Bath toys and science: Rubber ducks in scientific thought

Leave it to a great mind with a lot of free time to make anything and everything into a subject of scientific research. From glacial melting to debugging, rubber duckies have proven themselves to be more than just an adorable, squeaky bath toy.

Duck and debug

To put it simply, rubber ducky debugging is essentially explaining your code to the little squeaker and detecting errors and bugs in the process. The idea is that when you manage to explain your code line-by-line, you can look for errors or potential improvements. The ducky acts as a sounding board to allow you to verbalise your thoughts and ideas. It doesn’t talk, just listens.

The technique was popularised by author Andrew Hunt and computer programmer David Thomas in their book The Pragmatic Programmer. They suggest that by explaining your code to the rubber duck, you can simplify the debugging process and improve your understanding of the code.

This method has many benefits. Aside from the efficient diagnosis, it improves communication with a team. If there are multiple developers working on a project, they can use the technique to discuss and identify the problem. They can understand each other’s thought processes better, and identify areas where they can work together better. To add on, it can even make the process a lot less stressful, and it’s not just because of its cute and friendly face!

Rubber ducky debugging
| Photo Credit:
FLICKR

Quack and track

Duckies have come a long way, from floating on the bathtub to floating on oceans and tracking currents and glacial melts. How quaint, isn’t it? But how did people come up with this?

Well, this all happened because of the infamous Friendly Floatees Spill. In 1992, a cargo ship travelling from Hong Kong to the U.S. via the Pacific Ocean was caught up in a storm. Amidst all of it, a shipping container fell overboard into the sea. That container had about 28,000 toys —- rubber ducks, beavers, turtles and frogs which were called “Friendly Floatees”.

Ocean currents carried the toys to many different places:

• Alaska

• Hawaii

• Japan

• Australia

• The west coast of North America

• The Arctic and parts of Europe years later

At first, it was kind of funny, watching the toys just drift into the ocean. But then, a bright idea was born: this was a perfect experiment to study ocean currents.

By tracking where the toys floated off to, oceanographers learned:

• How currents moved

• How long it took for objects to travel

• How polluters travelled across the sea

Now, when it comes to glaciers, NASA has an experiment worth sharing.

In 2008, NASA dropped about 90 rubber duckies into Greenland glacier’s moulin (water shaft) to trace sub-glacial water channels. The duckies were meant to flow with the meltwater from the Jakobshavn Glacier and into the sea, aiding studies on how surface melt lubricates and accelerates ice flow. Sure enough, the duckies were never recovered, but the experiment was rather successful.

Ducks in the ocean, like the ‘1992 Friendly Floatees Spill’. (AI generated image)
| Photo Credit:
ChatGPT

A tiny world for bacterial growth

As cute as they are, duckies are breeding grounds for bacteria to grow and develop. In 2018, a group of scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology collected 19 real bath toys from Swiss households and simulated their use at home, exposing them to bath water, soap, and human body fluids. 11 weeks later, the toys were dissected and the horror was unveiled: 5–75 million bacterial cells per square centimetre in the biofilm lining the inner surfaces of the bath toys!

60% of the real bath toys saw fungal growth and 80% of them saw pathogenic (something that causes diseases in the host) bacteria. Just goes to show that things aren’t always as great-looking as they seem.

The March 27, 2018 photo shows the inside of a rubber duck after it was cut open for the photo in Nauen, Germany. Swiss researchers said the cute, yellow bath-time friends harbour a dirty secret: Microbes swimming inside. The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology says researchers turned up dense growths of bacteria and fungi on the insides of toys like rubber ducks and crocodiles.
| Photo Credit:
AP

Our friendly ‘floatie’

Teachers, this is especially for you. If you’d like a way to explain buoyancy to the kids, rubber ducks can help. Buoyancy is the upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of an immersed object, making it float. Rubber ducks are buoyant because of the air trapped inside the hard rubber or plastic exterior and a density lesser than water. To put it simply, objects that are less denser than water will float.

Rubber ducks floating on water.
| Photo Credit:
Freepik

Rubber ducks remind us that science is well beyond labs and their equipment, and textbooks. You can find scientific concepts in everyday objects. All it takes is curiosity and a great mind.

Published – February 25, 2026 09:00 am IST