It seems like there’s an old wives’ tale for everything — from cleaning to maintaining your health, there’s always some trick to doing things better. The same goes for cooking, too! One of the classic examples is to add salt to your water in order to get it to boil faster. But is this actually
Read moreThermochromic Slime Experiment
We’ve all experienced a mood ring change color when you put it on your finger. But have you ever seen slime do that? Thermochromism is the property of substances to change color due to a change in temperature. Here is a DIY to make your own thermochromic slime. What you need: ¼ cup white glue
Read moreIs it a Microwave or a Shrink Ray?
I’ll be honest: This one blew me away the first time I saw it! What is going on here? It all has to do with polymers, which are basically long chains of repeated molecules, which you can learn more about here. Just to re-iterate: This is not dangerous to you, but it is dangerous to
Read moreDiscovering Density with Liquid Nitrogen
Why does water form lakes and oceans underneath a vast expanse of airy sky? The answer to that, and many more questions, is density! Density is most easily described mathematically by the following equation: This means that density depends on only these two quantities: Mass, or the amount of matter that something is made up
Read moreDiffusion, Pizza, and You
If you were to take a freshly baked pizza and put you and it at opposite ends of a vault with no airflow at all, would you ever be tempted by its delicious aroma? The answer, it turns out, is yes! Even without the aid of air currents, the smell would spread. Nothing in the
Read moreTabletop Rockets Science
Temperature is a measure of energy. Adding energy to a substance makes it hotter; removing energy makes it colder. Warm, energetic molecules move faster and farther, spreading out over a larger volume of space. This balloon has been cooled to hundreds of degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), condensing the gas molecules inside. At room temperature, the
Read moreThomas Edison and the Bright Idea
Thomas Edison famously invented the incandescent light bulb. These light bulbs are pretty simple things. They are really just a glass casing around a tiny metal resistor called the filament. As electricity runs through it, the filament heats up until it produces light. But how much does it have to heat up? It turns
Read moreExploring Chemistry with Fire & Ice
Can you change the speed of a reaction just by changing the temperature? That’s what we’re going to find out! First, we need to understand the reaction: This balloon is filled with hydrogen, and then it is lit on fire. This is known as a combustion reaction, where hydrogen combines with oxygen. This means that
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