* [festive instrumental music] *
- [cheers and applause]
[balloon pops] - audience: Oooh!
- Hello, everyone and welcome to my lab!
Are you ready to learn? - Yeah!
- Are you ready to have some fun?
- Yeah!
- Well, let's get started.
We always start by making sure
that we obey the safety rules.
You will notice I have my goggles on.
If you have not noticed, I'm pointing them out to you now.
And you also notice that I have a fire extinguisher right here,
ready to be used
just in case something goes out of control.
We're not planning on anything going out of control,
but we have it as a safety precaution.
It is part of the safety rules.
And if need be... [blasts fire extinguisher] we can use it.
I am going to set it where you and I know where it is.
If it is needed, we will use it.
Now when you came in, you saw
that we have lots of equipment and lots of chemicals
all over the place.
And the one thing I really want to ask you to do
is to pay attention.
Always pay attention to what's happening
so you don't miss out on anything that is exciting.
Do you see anything floating up in the air?
- [audience murmurs excitedly] Yes.
- You see balloons up in the air.
How many balloons are there? - Six.
And what color are these balloons?
- Red. - Yellow. - Green.
- There are two green, two yellow, and two red.
What do you suppose we have in those balloons?
- [multiple responses from audience]
- Well, some of you are saying helium
because you know from experience--
That's a key word.
You know from experience
that helium-filled balloons are lighter than air.
I'm going to tell you right now
that helium is a gas lighter than air, but does not burn.
So one way to find out what's in the balloons
is try to ignite the balloons as we have them up there.
I notice some of you are covering your ears.
- [audience laughing]
- Why are you covering your ears?
Because you know from experience
there might be some sound energy, as well.
So it's always good
to obey the safety rules
for my protection and for your protection, too.
All right, so we go to the first one, and...
[pop] - audience: Oooh!
- That balloon popped.
That balloon had in it the gas helium.
Helium is lighter than air, but does not burn.
What we always do in science
is repeat the experiment.
So we go to the second balloon here,
and...
[pop] - audience: Oooh!
- Did the same thing happen? - Yeah.
-Exactly the same thing happen? - Yeah.
- Right, so those two balloons were filled with helium gas,
which is lighter than air.
Now we move over
to the next set of balloons that we have here.
And you see
that the yellow balloon is on a string.
They're all on strings.
And let's find out what's in this one.
[loud boom] - audience: Oooh!
[cheers and applause]
- Did that balloon have helium in it?
- No.
- That balloon had in it a gas lighter than air.
It's actually hydrogen.
Hydrogen combines with oxygen in the air when ignited
in the fashion that you just saw.
What do we always do in science?
- Repeat the experiment.
- Let's repeat this experiment, but let's do it in the dark
and see what happens.
Okay, here we go. - audience: Oooh.
- You ready for this? You're sure you're ready? Here we go!
[loud boom] - audience: Oooh!
[cheers and applause]
-Did you see that ball of fire? - audience: Yeah.
- Did you see it better
with the lights on or with the lights out?
- audience: Out.
- That's what we do whenever we do experiments
that release energy in the form of light.
We do them in the dark so we can see them better.
Now, I want to ask you to look at the monitor
because we're going to play back in slow-motion
the very last experiment that I did.
You won't hear any sound.
But there you see the ball of fire going up.
- Wasn't that neat?
- Yeah! [cheers and applause]
- Well, thank you.
- Well, we have two more balloons,
but we also have a lot more experiments.
What shall I do next,
more balloons or go on with the other experiments?
- Balloons. - More balloons, all right.
We'll do more balloons.
You noticed...
You noticed because you were paying attention.
You noticed that the loudness of the sound increased
as we moved from the green balloons to the yellow balloons.
And that's why I want you to pay close attention now.
And ask you to prevent potential ear damage
by taking both fingers, stick them in your ears, like this.
I can't do the experiment
and do it at the same time that way.
So I have this, right?
So I want everybody to protect your ears from damage.
If you can hear the sound of my voice
that means that you don't have your ears well-protected.
You're smiling.
You just heard what I said so please protect your ears
as we move on to the next experiment right here.
And...
[very loud boom] - Whoa!
[cheers and applause]
- That balloon had in it
hydrogen and oxygen.
You know the air is about 20% oxygen,
but that balloon had in it more than 20%.
What do we always do in science?
- Repeat the experiment.
- And you repeat the ear protection, all right?
So we go to the next one,
and we'll do it in the dark please.
[very loud boom]
- Yeah! Oooh!
[cheers and applause]
- In the burning of the candle right here we have what we call
a controlled combustion reaction.
What we just saw and experienced
was an uncontrolled combustion reaction.
We call those explosions.
Let's have a look at the monitor again
to see the last red balloon as the flame comes to it.
You won't hear any sound.
- Whoa - Did you like that?
- Yeah! [cheers and applause]
- What I'd like to do next is an experiment
using this tall cylinder that I have here.
It is sitting on a magnetic motor.
There is a spin bar down there.
And I have the ingredients for the experiment here.
Whoops! I'm missing one ingredient.
There are three ingredients. I'm missing one.
Could somebody please bring me the missing ingredient?
I'm missing the ingredient for this experiment in...
- [cheers and applause]
- Hello, Bucky! Welcome to my lab, Bucky.
Thank you, thank you for bringing--
Let me see, is that what I want?
That is exactly what I want.
So, Bucky, I would like you to help with this experiment.
I want everybody to see
that Bucky is a very good science student.
He has goggles.
You see that right?
- [cheers and applause]
- Bucky also has a "Science is Fun" button right here.
Bucky is a fabulous science student.
So let's go do this experiment together, Bucky.
So what I'm holding up here, what does it say on it?
- Milk of magnesia.
- Bucky, would you shake this up for me?
Yeah, just shake it up, yeah, real, real well.
- [laughter] - All right, all right.
And then, you hand it to me. Thank you.
I'm going to take some of the milk of magnesia,
and put it right here,
and see...
- audience: Whoa!
- It's not dissolving very well, is it?
Bucky, the missing ingredient that I had is right here.
Can you help with this experiment, Bucky?
All right, put a little bit up there at the top.
Yeah, yeah. That's good, that's good.
- audience: Oooh!
- Very good, Bucky. Very good, Bucky.
And so, there's a color change, yes.
- [cheers and applause]
- So what we have here is a mixture
of acid-base indicators.
The magnesium hydroxide, which is in the milk of magnesia,
is basic.
So, Bucky, we have an acidic liquid here.
Can you tell what it says here? - Vinegar.
- Vinegar, vinegar. Okay, Bucky,
add a little bit of vinegar into the cylinder.
Let's see what happens.
Just add a little bit. Yeah, yeah, not much.
Don't be afraid. Go ahead, Bucky.
Okay, that's good, that's good.
- audience: Oooh!
[cheers and applause]
- You see the colors of the rainbow, right?
Okay, Bucky, a little more of the vinegar please.
Bucky likes doing this experiment, I can tell that.
All right.
- audience: Oooh!
- So we have an acid-based reaction taking place.
Bucky, add some more please.
Like, a lot more.
- audience: Dump the whole bottle!
All right, all right.
The whole bottle will flow out! We can't put the whole bottle.
But look at the beautiful color changes.
Fabulous transformation! Bravo, Bucky!
- [cheers and applause]
- So, Bucky, as I said, is a very good student.
Bucky is going to graduate in four years.
Everyone is going to graduate in four years.
Let me see that again. One, two, three, four.
I have five-- Well, we're different.
But you're going to do it in four years.
Fantastic, fantastic.
And in order to graduate, you have to pass your final exams.
I know it's final exam time here
and you have to go study and prepare for the final exam.
Bucky, thank you so much for coming and joining
this very special celebration.
Thank you very much, Bucky. Thank you.
- [cheers and applause]
- Thank you, Bucky.
- [laughter]
- Quite a character, right?
My next experiment will be done
using this burner,
which is connected
to the natural gas source.
Can you see the flame?
- audience: Yeah.
- Huh? Not really, right?
I mean, I can see it, but it's not a good flame to watch.
Let me see if I can
make it appear
a little better.
So what I'm going to do
is take a liquid from this spray bottle
and I'm going to spray it into the flame.
- audience: Oooh!
- Now you can see it better, right?
How about if I take another liquid
from a different spray bottle
and do this?
- audience: Oooh!
- This and this.
How about together?
- audience: Oooh! [cheers and applause]
- Well, what I have in this spray bottle
is a water solution of table salt, sodium chloride.
When I spray that, this is the color that we see:
- audience: Oooh!
- That's really cool also. All right.
And if I take a solution of copper chloride
and I spray that, I get this green.
Now, you tell me:
Is this green the same as this green?
Do they look the same? - audience: Yeah.
- Kind of, right?
- [multiple responses from audience]
- What I really want to do now is spray this one
that has the lithium chloride in it
with this one that has boron in it
in the dark.
So if we take the lights down.
There we go. One, two... There we go.
- audience: Oooh! [cheers and applause]
- All right.
With the lights back up please.
Thank you, thank you.
Did you like that experiment? - Yeah!
- All right, all right.
At this time, I would you like to welcome
my long-time collaborator and very special friend,
Dr. Rodney Schreiner. Rod?
- [applause]
- Hello, Bassam. - Hello, Rodney.
- I'm really happy to be here on this,
the 47th anniversary of your presentations.
- I'm very happy that you're here, Rodney.
Rodney has been coming to my presentations
and participating in them for 46 years.
- One short. - One short.
- [applause]
- Rodney: Well, you know, we're both chemists.
And chemists like to mark anniversaries with the element
whose atomic number corresponds to the anniversary.
This is the 47th anniversary of this show.
Do you know what the 47th element is?
- Silver. - Silver, right, it is silver.
So I have brought you something--
- That doesn't look like silver, Rodney.
- [laughter]
- You're right.
It doesn't look like silver, does it?
What does it look like? - audience: Copper.
- It looks like copper
because it is copper.
Yes, but we are chemists so I think we can do something--
- All right. - Using the copper and silver.
So, we have a solution here.
- We do. We have lots of solutions.
Which one would you like?
- This one with the balloon on it.
- This one here? - Yes. - All right.
- This is a solution of silver nitrate.
There is silver dissolved in the solution.
And I'm going to put the copper
into that solution.
So dip it in.
And it immediately changes color.
It changes color because copper is a more active metal
than silver so it replaces the silver.
The silver goes onto the copper
And the copper goes into the solution.
It's very slow for that to happen
so we'll have to wait a while.
And while we're waiting, I want to show you
some more about silver.
I have another solution of silver.
This is exactly the same solution as that.
But I'm going to add to it some household chemicals,
and we'll see what happens.
The first one I'm going to add is this one.
What is it?
- Baking soda. - Baking soda.
Do you know what the chemical name of that is?
Sodium bicarbonate.
Okay, so I have a tiny amount of sodium bicarbonate
dissolved in water.
In chemistry, we have to be careful about the amounts
because they make a big difference.
I going to add just a little bit
of sodium bicarbonate solution.
And watch carefully.
See if something happens.
[spin bar clinks quietly]
Did you see something happen?
- audience: No. - No?
You didn't watch carefully enough. - [audience laughs]
- Something actually did happen.
It became slightly, ever so slightly cloudy
because it now has silver carbonate floating around,
a little bit.
Let's see if we can make more appear.
This time, I'm going to add
a solution that comes from this.
Do you know what this is?
- audience: Drano .
- Brand name is Drano.
The active ingredient is lye, sodium hydroxide.
So now I'm going to add sodium hydroxide.
You won't have to watch quite so carefully,
I think.
- audience: Oooh!
- So we see some things now.
So it got cloudy, and it changed color.
What color is this?
- audience: Brown. - Rodney: Brown, yes.
Is brown your favorite color?
- No.
- I don't think anybody said yes .
I'm going to see if we can change the color
by adding yet another household chemical--
That's this one.
- Salt. - Salt, okay.
So I have some salt dissolved here,
and I'm going to pour that
into the mixture
and we'll see what happens.
- Oooh!
- It changed color.
It was brown and now it's...
- White.
Is white your favorite color?
- [multiple responses from audience]
I heard a few yesses , but still mostly no .
Let's see what we can do.
Now I'm going to add one more household chemical.
That's this one. What's this?
- audience: Ammonia. - Ammonia, okay.
So I'll add the ammonia, and we'll see what happens.
Well, you said you didn't like white,
so the white is gone.
- [laughter]
- And so is everything else.
Is this just like the solution I started with?
- audience: No.
- No, it looks like it, but we all know it's not
because I added a bunch of other things to it.
Now I want to add one more thing to that solution.
This is something you probably don't have at home
unless you're not very careful with your eggs.
What I'm going to add
is this solution.
Smells like rotten eggs,
because rotten eggs produce what's in this solution.
This is sodium sulfide.
and I'm going to add some sodium sulfide.
I think I'm going to stir it a little faster,
and then add some sodium sulfide.
Just a little bit at first.
You see the change?
It's turning sort of yellowish brown.
Does that remind you of anything?
Remind you of anything like
what happens to silver?
It tarnishes.
Yes, especially if you eat
your scrambled eggs with a silver fork,
your silver fork will get dark
because of the sulfide in the eggs.
Now I'm going to add
the rest of my sodium sulfide,
and...
it gets really dark.
Turns black.
Now I want to show you something else.
I have this tarnished spoon here,
and you can get rid of the tarnish
with ordinary chemicals that
you have at home,
and I'm going to show you how to do that.
Get my supplies.
First, you need a metal that is more active than silver.
Copper is more active than silver,
but you probably don't have a lot of copper around the home,
at least not any cheap copper you want to use this for,
but you do have cheap aluminum.
Aluminum foil is very cheap.
Aluminum is much more active metal than silver,
I've taken a glass dish
and lined it with aluminum foil.
And I'm going to put the silver spoon into that dish.
Now, nothing happens because
there are no solutions for the reaction to take place in.
So I need to make a solution.
The solution I'm going to make
uses baking soda.
And I'm going to put baking soda
in this beaker.
That was 60 cubic centimeters
of baking soda,
or a quarter of a cup, if you speak American.
And I'm going to add to it some hot water.
And because it is hot, I'm going to protect my hands
with some cotton gloves,
and get my hot water from down here.
See, it is genuinely hot.
It is boiling.
And I'm going to
dissolve the baking soda in the hot water.
Now the hot water is so hot that it causes
some of the baking soda to decompose.
You know what happens when baking soda decomposes.
It gives off a gas.
That gas is carbon dioxide.
So now I have a very hot solution
of sodium bicarbonate,
and I'm going to pour that hot solution
over the spoon and into the dish
with aluminum foil.
- audience: Oooh!
- And, the tarnish goes away.
- [applause]
- So I just want to show you that this spoon...
So you don't have to look at it only on the monitor,
there it is, all nicely clean and shiny again.
No more tarnish.
- Very nice, Rodney, very nice.
Is this an experiment that can be done at home?
- Yes, you certainly can do this at home.
In fact, the instructions are on the Science is Fun website
at scifun.org, S-C-I-F-U-N dot ORG,
scifun.org.
So you can get instructions on how to do this
with all the right amounts.
- Good luck to everyone in trying to
remove tarnish from your silver. - [applause]
- Thank you so much, Rodney. Thank you, thank you.
- [applause]
- I know that
you,
some of you, maybe all of you, like spaghetti.
Is there anybody who likes spaghetti?
- [cheers]
- All right, lots of people.
And maybe you are like me,
I stick the fork in there and
I try to turn it here.
I can see that some of the spaghetti
is coming up here, but that's moving fast enough.
Let me see if I can make that move a little faster here.
So let me try this and see if this works here.
Okay, here we go.
[drill whirs]
- [laughter]
- Isn't this a better way of doing it?
- audience: Yeah.
- What I really want you to watch now
is this clear and colorless liquid
that I have right in front of me here.
It's a viscous liquid.
It doesn't flow very well.
And I have a crank up here.
What I'm going to do is
turn the crank
and see what happens to the liquid.
- audience: Oooh!
- The very same thing that the spaghetti did.
That's because this liquid has in it
long chains of material
that behave in a similar way
to what the spaghetti did.
Stop cranking. You like that?
- [applause]
- I'm may try to turn it the other way now
to see if the same thing happens.
You might have thought it'll go down, right?
But it doesn't.
So this is a polymeric substance
that behaves in the same fashion
as the spaghetti
when you try to do it with the fork.
Like this experiment?
- Yeah. [applause]
- You know, there's so much excitement in my lab,
you never really know who's going to show up
in my lab to do some experiments.
There are lots of people who come in.
- Ho, ho, ho, ho!
Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas.
Happy holidays, merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you, Bassam . - Bassam: Hello, Santa.
- Hello. - Welcome to my lab.
- I'm glad to be in your laboratory.
- I'm very happy that you're here.
Did you get my list? - It was a pretty long list.
- It wasn't all that long.
Did I get anything on my list?
I've been good. Haven't I been good?
- Yes!
- I do have a few things for you.
- All right, then. Let's do it right here then.
- All right, in your laboratory.
- Welcome, welcome. - Thank you.
Good, well let's see what I can find here.
- All right. - Let's see here.
I think we've got something that the elves made for you.
This wasn't on your list,
but I have been paying attention, and I do understand
this is your 47th anniversary of the Christmas show.
- It is the 47th anniversary. Very proud of that.
- [cheers and applause] - Bassam: Thank you, Santa.
- And we do science in the North Pole,
so we know, 47, the element is Silver.
So we made you a silver 47.
- Oh, my goodness, look at that.
Isn't that precious, huh?
- [applause]
- The elves in your workshop can do chemistry?
- Oh, they do chemistry.
- And they do it safely, right?
- They do it very safely, yes they do.
- Thank you so much, Santa. This is very precious.
I'm going to keep it right here.
- Here's a few things that were on your list.
One is this beautiful book. - It's finally published!
- Yes.
- A Little Book of Wonders -- that's the title of it--
Celebrating the Gifts of the Natural World .
It's written by Dr. Nadia Drake.
This is a special book,
special to me because Nadia is my niece.
- Santa: Oooh. - [applause]
- And she autographed it on the inside.
That's fantastic.
Thank you, thank you, Santa.
- This was on your list, but I'm confused.
You wanted rubber bands?
-Yes, I wanted two rubber bands.
Did you get two? - I have two.
- You got two.
I'd like to do an experiment with you.
Are you game for experiments?
- Sure, yes.
- You and I are going to use our skin
as a temperature detector.
That's what we're going to do. - Okay.
- So what we do, is we hold this
in front of our nose, right,
and what I would like you to do is stretch the rubber band
and put it on your nose.
What do you feel?
- [Santa] It feels warm. - It feels warm.
Now move it away.
Contract it, and quickly put it on your nose.
- Oh, it feels cold. - It feels cold,
so the skin is a temperature probe.
You can try this experiment at home.
Use a rubber band about this thick here.
You can put it on your forehead,
you can put it on your lip,
wherever you want to learn more
about the properties of different materials.
This is a very neat experiment that people can try.
-And that's on the website, too? - It's the website, too.
The scifun.org,
scifun.org
"Experiments You Can Do At Home."
Click over there, download them,
have a lot of fun doing them together.
Thank you, Santa, thank you.
- Thank you, good.
So I brought you something else,
but it's not on your list. - Yeah?
- But it does involve doing an experiment.
There are two vials of white powder,
and I'm going to give you one. - I see that, yeah.
- And can we use these solutions and beakers?
- We can use whatever solutions you want.
- Thank you, good.
We have all kinds of colorful solutions here.
- Let's use those.
Let me be safe and put on my goggles.
- Oh, Santa knows the safety rules.
- So, what I'd like you to do is
to take the empty beaker
and add the white powder to it.
- So uncap it, and just dump it in there?
- Dump it in there. Is that exciting?
Not too.
- Well, I'm doing what you told me to do.
- Okay, okay, okay. - [laughter]
- Okay, you listen carefully.
- Yes, I'm paying attention.
- Paying attention, okay.
Now you take your red liquid.
I'll take the green liquid,
and we're going to pour them in on top of the powder,
just to get them mixed up very thoroughly, okay?
- Then what? - Then, we're going to pour it back into the other beaker.
- We're going back and forth? - Back and forth.
- Okay, here we go. - Pretty easy.
- All right, all the way in.
All the way, right? - All the way.
- Then, what do we do? - Then, just go back.
- Okay, let's go back.
- [laughter]
- Santa, wow.
Look at that.
Now what is this powder, Santa?
- This powder is called super absorbent powder,
and it absorbs many, many times its weight of water.
- Bassam: Wow, I can see that. It did that.
- It did that. Is that pretty nice?
- Yeah. - You like that experiment.
- I like it,
and the elves like doing experiments in your workshop?
- They do, they very much do.
- Right, right, well, Santa, I know
this is the busiest time of the year for you.
You have so many other stops to make. - I do.
- You're probably double-parked out there.
- [laughter] - I don't want you to get a parking ticket of any sort.
Thank you so much for coming here.
Give my very best to all of the elves and Mrs. Claus.
- Merry Christmas. - Thank you so much, Santa.
- Ho, ho, ho, ho.
Merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho, ho
Is everybody being good?
Merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho, ho
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Merry Christmas.
See 'ya at Christmas time.
Ho, ho, ho, ho.
Bye, bye.
- What I'd like to do now is an experiment using this mug.
Can you see what this mug says on it?
Oh, let's see if we can get a better shot.
There it is.
Right, right, see that, right, huh?
Are we having fun?
- audience: Yeah! [applause]
- Well, let's see if we can have some more fun, all right?
So the question I have for you is this:
Do you suppose there's a way for me or for you
to suspend this mug up in the air
without touching it?
Do you suppose there's a way for me or for you
to suspend this mug up in the air without touching it,
yes or no?
- audience: Yes.
- Some people are saying yeah, some people are saying no,
some people don't care, right?
I want you to pay attention and care
because everything we do is fun in my laboratory.
So what I'm going to do is reach into my pocket
and get out a balloon,
and I'd like you to watch carefully what I'm doing
as I put the balloon inside the mug
and inflate the balloon.
Ta-da!
- [laughter and applause]
- Is the mug suspended up in the air?
Am I touching it?
Is this an experiment you can do at home?
Make sure you put a cushion down here. - [laughter]
- All right, I'm going to try to pull it out.
Pull it out, oh, okay,
the balloon is bent out shape here, right?
So what I would like you to do
is to think about the explanation
as to why this has happened.
I'm going to let the air out of the balloon,
so let's set it down here.
What's the explanation for this?
Some people say it's because the balloon
created some pressure inside the mug.
So what I've done is
I went to the glass shop that we have here
and I sawed off the bottom of this beaker
so I can put my hand through it
and I'm going to do the very same experiment
using the very same balloon and see what happens.
Here we go.
[inflating balloon "ffffw"]
Ta-da!
- [applause]
- So, pressure is not the explanation.
There must be some other explanation, right?
I'm going to give you a hint.
Do you know the difference between a hint and a clue?
A hint is something that someone gives you.
A clue is something that you find.
You know, you walk around sometimes and say,
"I have no clue."
- [laughter]
- So here's my hint.
I want everybody to rub your hands like this very fast.
What do you feel? - Heat.
- What's causing the heat?
- Friction.
- Could that be your hint?
You think about it.
At this time, I would like you to welcome
a special guest to my lab.
A neuroscientist.
I would like you to welcome
Dr. Indre Viskontas.
- [applause]
- Hello, Indre.
Welcome to my lab.
- So great to be here.
- What have you been working on?
- So I'm really interested in how the brain works.
How we see things, how we make sense of the world.
- Do we always see things exactly the way they are?
- Absolutely not.
In fact, there are such things as illusions.
- What's an illusion?
- Well, I brought two types I'd like to show you today.
I brought you an optical illusion
and a visual illusion.
- An optical illusion and a visual illusion.
All right, I'm ready.
- You're ready? I will set it up over here.
- Set it up over here.
I'll get out of your way.
- Thank you.
All right.
Oh, going to do it this way.
So, an optical illusion is an illusion where
there is something in between your eyes
and what it is that you're looking at
that changes how you perceive that object, okay?
So first off, do you see two arrows here?
- audience: Yes.
- Okay, are they pointing in the same direction?
- audience: Yes. - Indre: Yes.
Are we sure about that?
Do I need to adjust them?
Okay, pointing in the same direction?
Yes.
All right, what happens when I put
a glass cylinder in front of one of them?
- [audience murmurs]
- Nothing.
They're still pointing in the same direction?
- audience: Yes.
- Well that's not very exciting.
Okay, well, what happens if I pour water
into the cylinder?
- audience: Oooh.
- Indre: Wow!
- [applause]
- It changed direction, but again the only reason
is because there's something in front of our eyes
and the thing that we're looking at.
- Bassam: So that's an optical illusion.
- Indre: That's an optical illusion.
You want to see a visual illusion?
- I would love to see a visual illusion, yes.
- So a visual illusion happens
entirely inside our brains.
There's nothing between our eyes and what we're seeing.
It's only the brain
that essentially creates the illusion.
So, do you see these two red lines?
- audience: Yes.
- Do they look exactly the same?
- audience: No.
- No, one of them looks longer than the other, right?
Which one?
The one on the right.
The one on the right looks longer than the other one,
but if I move it across the screen,
you'll see that, in fact, it's exactly the same length.
Sorry, that looks a little weird, let's put it down.
There we go, see, same length.
But when it's over here, your brain interprets these lines
as indicating that this line
is actually further away from us,
so it must be bigger.
Our brain creates the visual illusion.
- That's fascinating, really fascinating.
- Thanks.
- [applause]
- Thank you.
- But you know what, we're in your lab today.
- Yes we are.
- So, can we do some chemistry? - Of course.
- Okay. - Did you bring your goggles?
- I did. There's some right here.
- All right, good.
How about working with these two liquids?
- Okay, they look very nice.
- So, we'll take--
You will want to do the experiment, right?
- I do.
- So this is a reddish liquid,
and there's a glass rod in there,
and this is a greenish liquid with a glass rod in it.
And behind, we have two containers
with two different clear and colorless liquids.
So, how about mixing some of this liquid
with the reddish one?
- Okay. - All right.
- Does it matter how much? - Bassam: No, try it.
- Okay, oh, look at that.
- Bassam: All right, add a little more.
- Indre: Wow.
- Bassam: Mix them up a little bit.
- Indre: Wow, it's turning green.
- It's turning green, indeed, right.
The color of the liquid is turning green.
Very good, so you changed reddish to green.
This one is green, and this one is clear and colorless.
So try another one, let's see what you have there.
- Indre: Whoa, look at that.
It's red! Red and green.
- Bassam: Little more.
A lot more.
All right. - Indre: I like your lab.
- Bassam: So we're back to green and red, as we started.
- These are holiday colors! - They are indeed.
- [applause]
- That's great.
So, you know, for me, the holidays are all about music.
- About music? - Yeah.
- Indre, I know that you are an opera singer.
- I am.
- Is there a chance you could sing a song for us, please?
- Oh, I would love to.
In fact, I have one prepared that I think
is really quite appropriate.
It's about a woman, a young woman,
who is asking her parents
for something that she really wants.
Do you want to hear that one? - Bassam: Yes please, yes.
- Okay, well first I need to get a note,
so let's see if this is the right sound.
Oh, I think that might work well.
Okay, so this is an aria from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi .
Just as I mentioned, this young woman is asking her father
to take her to the market to buy a ring,
because if she can get a ring,
then she can marry the boy she loves.
All right, so, let's see.
* O mio babbino caro
* Mi piace, afa bello bello
* Vo'andare in Porta Rossa
* A comperar l'anello!
* Si, si, ci voglio andare!
* E se l'amassi indarno
* Andrei sul Ponte Vecchio
* Ma per buttarmi in Arno!
* Mi struggo e mi tormento
* O Dio!
* Vorrei morir!
* Babbo, pietafa
* Pietafa [sustaining note]
* Babbo, pietafa, pietafa
- [cheers and applause]
- Wasn't that beautiful?
You may have anything you ask for.
- Yes!
- Please give her another round of applause.
- [applause]
- As a neuroscientist and opera singer,
and now become a chemist,
would you like to do another experiment?
- I would, but you know, the holidays are about
everybody singing together,
so can we sing one quick song, all of us?
- We can sing. That's an experiment too.
- Okay. - Can we do that?
- Yes, let's do that.
All right, so we're going to sing "Jingle Bells."
So let's set the beat.
Ready?
One, two, three, four - [audience clapping]
- * Jingle bells, jingle bells
* Jingle all the way
* Oh what fun it is to ride
* In a one horse open sleigh, hey
* Jingle bells, jingle bells
* Jingle all the way
* Oh what fun it is to ride
* In a one horse open sleigh
* Dashing through the snow
* In a one horse open sleigh
* O'er the fields we go
* Laughing all the way, ha ha ha
* Bells on bob tails ring
* Making spirits bright
* What fun it is to ride and sing
* A sleighing song tonight
* Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
* Jingle all the way
* Oh what fun it is to ride
* In a one horse open sleigh, hey
* Jingle bells, jingle bells
* Jingle all the way
* Oh what fun it is to ride
* In a one horse open sleigh
Thank you.
- Fabulous, fabulous.
A beautiful experiment right here.
Would you like to do another science experiment?
- Yeah, do we have one more?
- We have lots more, so you want to help with one?
- Okay, yes.
- We need gloves for that. - Okay.
- So we put on gloves because we're going to pick up
those glass containers that have in them hot water.
- Okay.
- And, of course, you'll obey the safety rules too.
I saw you put your goggles on. That's very good.
And what we're going to do is
take the rubber stoppers off,
pick up the flasks,
and empty the hot water
into the sink to your right over there.
- Okay. - All right.
We're just emptying the water.
Just dump it out like this,
glug, glug, glug, glug, yeah, yeah.
There it is, there it is.
And then, we come back here.
We put the round bottom flasks on the cork rings,
and we take some of the liquid--
actually, all the liquid in this small flask--
we put it in there,
and then, when ready,
we take this clear and colorless liquid
and add it there
all the way.
And then,
we put the rubber stopper back on
and we start mixing the liquids.
- Whoa, it's getting brown.
- Like so... Ah, shake them.
They're getting darker. - Yeah.
Wait, something else is happening on mine.
- Mine too.
- Oooh. [audience murmuring]
- Hey, I see you! - I see you too!
- [laughter]
- Wow.
- Can the audience-- can you see yourself?
- Yeah, look at that.
- [applause]
- So, what we've done here is deposit a thin layer of silver
inside those round bottom flasks,
and what we've done is
prepare holiday ornaments.
- Indre: So cool.
- It's very, very fun doing experiments in my lab,
and it's been made much more fun
with the beautiful singing that you provided
and you asked the audience to join in,
so that you so much for coming, Indre.
- Thank you.
- We'll see you again soon. - Always great to see you.
- Thank you. - Bye bye.
- [applause]
- For my next experiment, I'm going to use
a large glass beaker,
and mix in it different liquids.
Turn the light on.
Turn the motor on so you can see the bar spinning,
and I need two more liquids
that are right here.
So, what I do is
turn this like so,
and add the first liquid, a clear and colorless liquid.
I pour it in,
and it gets a little cloudy.
Then, I take the second liquid
and I pour that in.
And anything exciting happen so far?
- audience: No.
- Well the volume increased. That's not so exciting.
That's a common experience.
Ah, well, that looks like we have a tornado here, right,
at the top of the liquid.
I hope this is the only tornado you'll ever come close to.
I take the third liquid and I add that,
and there you see a change.
- audience: Oooh!
- So this is a beautiful experiment
where we mix three different liquids
and we see, there has been a change.
- audience: Oooh!
- What's going on?
- [audience murmuring]
- Are you seeing something that I'm not seeing?
- [laughter]
- The last time I looked at the liquid in the beaker,
the color was blue, deep blue, almost black.
Tell me when to look. Should I look right now?
I don't want to trip over anything.
Tell me when to look. Should I look right now: yes or no?
- audience: No. - Okay, I won't look right now.
- audience: Now! - Right now? You sure?
I don't want to trip.
Every time I look, it's deep blue, almost black.
Maybe you can help me better on this side. Okay?
Tell me when to look. - audience: Now!
- Right now, are you sure?
Don't want to trip over it.
Every time I look it's blue.
All right.
Help me out. Tell me when to look.
- audience: Now!
- Right now, are you sure, right-- absolutely right...
What's going on here?
What's going on?
Oh!
Whoa.
What is it that you are doing that I was not doing?
You were looking all the time?
I was looking all the time too.
But I wasn't looking here all the time.
Remember what I said before, pay attention.
Pay attention to what's going on
so you don't miss out on the excitement
of beautiful chemical transformations that happen
when you mix chemicals together
and you do experiments safely.
This experiment is one of 50 known such reactions
called oscillating chemical reactions.
It was discovered by two high school teachers,
and it's named after them.
It's the Briggs-Rauscher reaction.
Briggs and Rauscher taught high school
chemistry and physics in northern California,
and about 40 years ago or so, they published a paper
in the Journal of Chemical Education,
describing this beautiful captivating behavior.
You like this experiment?
- audience: Yes!
- I'd like to you take another look now at the
beaker that's turned blue in color,
the liquid has turned blue in color
where we have crystals of silver
on the copper that was cut
in the shape of a tree.
The blue color is because the copper is going into solution
as a result of the chemical reaction,
and the silver is depositing on the copper.
A very beautiful electrochemical reaction.
For my next experiment, I'm going to do
right over here, I have a spiral glass assembly
with a funnel on top and a receiving beaker at the bottom.
I'm going to mix two liquids,
a clear and colorless liquid and a clear and blue liquid.
I'm going to mix them in the dark,
so with the lights down please,
I'm ready whenever the lights are out.
Here we go!
- [audience: Oooh!]
- Isn't that beautiful?
With the lights up please.
This is a chemical reaction that releases energy
in the form of light, not in the form of heat.
I can touch it right here, it's at room temperature.
Let's have a look at the monitor
and see the same reaction in slow motion now.
- [audience: Oooh!]
A beautiful flow mixing the two ingredients
to produce what is called chemiluminescence.
Can you say chemiluminescence?
- audience: Chemiluminescence.
- Very good. Before you go to sleep tonight,
make sure you know how to spell chemiluminescence,
because this is how we learn.
At this time, I would like you to welcome
our Lecture Demonstrator in the Chemistry Department
here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Mr. James Maynard. Jim!
- [applause]
- Hello, Jim.
- Hi, how are you doing?
- Do you have something for us?
- Yes, yes I do.
So part of my experiment is probably here.
Let me see if I can find it. Oh, yeah, so we have this.
Maybe you've seen one of these before.
[torch flame hisses]
- All right. - Okay.
And then I have a small,
Erlenmeyer flask with a clear, colorless liquid in it.
- I see that.
- And I have this syringe.
- All right, that's small too.
- Yeah, I'm missing one more thing.
Let me get it.
- You are? All right.
- I hope it's not so small.
- Oh, not quite as small as the other parts, no.
- What is that, a long glass tube, right? - Yup.
- And what do you have at the bottom of the tube?
- There's a stopper on the top,
and there's a stopper on the bottom.
And inside here, there's a clear and colorless gas.
As you can see, it doesn't seem
to be doing very much right now.
- Right.
- So my experiment consists of taking this liquid,
introducing it to this gas,
mixing it, and igniting it.
And so I'm going to get started.
- All right. - Okay.
For this particular experiment--
I know you shouldn't do this at home,
so don't follow a bad example.
I've got to get up on the table. - [laughter]
- Okay.
So what I want to do is take
the syringe, and I'm going to
draw a small amount of this fluid out into the syringe.
Don't worry, it doesn't hurt a bit.
So I have a certain quantity of this, and now I'm going to
introduce this liquid to the gas inside here.
And this is introducing.
- I can see the liquid flowing down, yeah, good, yeah.
- Yup, and I'm actually going to do a little more.
I don't like that. I need more.
More is better, right? - audience: Yeah.
- Yeah, I agree.
- Sometimes. - [laughter]
- Okay, so we continue the process.
Put just a little more in there.
Now I'm going to mix it.
And I'm going to start my torch, okay.
So, now I'm going to mix it in a rather special way.
One,
two,
and a half...
All right, now I think we're sufficiently mixed
to do this experiment.
I would like this in the dark please.
As dark as we can make it.
- What are you going to do?
- I'm going to ignite the gas and the mixture in this tube.
- Bassam: All right.
- I'm going to do so on the count of three.
One, two, three.
[tsch, vvvwhooommm]
- [cheers and applause]
- Bassam: I see lots of changes here.
- Oh, yes.
So this is sulfur that you see on the inside of this.
So the gas inside here
is called "laughing gas," nitrous oxide.
You may have heard of it.
This liquid in this small Erlenmeyer flask
is called carbon disulfide.
It has a structure a lot like carbon dioxide,
but as you can see it does completely different chemistry,
and so this sulfur is a product from the reaction that forms
nitrogen and water and carbon dioxide.
- Let's take a quick look, look at the monitor,
and see this very same experiment in slow motion.
You won't hear any sound.
There is the flame.
You see Jim trying to get out of the way there.
- All right. Thank you very much.
- Thank you, Jim.
[cheers and applause]
My next experiment is one where I'm going to use
plastic bottles that have screws
stuck on the sides.
There's a cork on the top of each,
a different cork on the top of each,
and there's a clear and colorless liquid at the bottom.
I want to show you a cut out
of what's going on in there.
So here's one that has the two screws.
You can see they're not touching on the inside.
They're not touching on the inside.
There... you can see them much better now.
And what I am going to do is reach for a source
of a spark.
This device is called a Tesla coil.
When I push the button,
it produces a spark.
What I want to do in this experiment
is touch one of the screws
to see if I can make the spark
jump across the gap that separates them.
Let's do this, and turn the lights down.
See if we can see it now.
- [audience: Oooh!]
- Can you see it?
Can you see the spark jumping across the gap?
Okay, with the lights back up please...
Now, because we have
a clear and colorless liquid
at the bottom of each of these two plastic bottles,
I'm ready to touch one screw.
And here we go!
[bottle cork pops sharply]
- Were you ready for that? - [nervous laughter]
- You ready for the next one? - audience: Yeah.
- All right, here we go.
[bottle cork pops sharply]
- [audience murmuring]
[cheering]
- Ready?
Here we go.
[bottle cork pops sharply]
- [cheers and applause]
[audience cheering]
- All right, give me a countdown.
One, two, three. Right? C'mon.
- audience: One, two, three.
[bottle cork pops sharply]
[cheers and applause]
- You have been a wonderful audience.
I'm so grateful for the eruption of appreciation
- [audience: Oooh!] - that you have given us.
I'm so happy that you enjoyed--
- [audience: Oooh!] - doing experiments.
Thank you so much for--
- [audience: Oooh!] - Sharing the joy of science.
- Thank you for coming.
Thank you everybody. Thank you.
- [cheers and applause]
* [festive instrumental music] *
[cheers and applause]