Specialization is for Insects.
Wow, this video is incredible. Perhaps we’ve got some chemist in the OMB readership who will care to explain exactly how the heck this works!
This video demonstrates how to make a liquid that turns to ice at the touch of a finger. Must be one of the strangest reactions I’ve ever seen.
It looks like the only real ingredient needed other than water is Sodium Acetate.
You Only THINK its Cold Outside
Ok. It’s the middle of winter, and we’re all sitting around complaining about how cold it is outside. But before you continue your whining, watch this video! This video taken in Fairbanks, Alaska (on the UAF campus) shows a pan of boiling water being thrown into the air in -45 degree...
How Hot Air Balloons Work
If you saw my recent post of the Reno Balloon Eace, you might have wondered how the pilots made the balloons go up and come down in basically the same spot. Well, the folks over at How Stuff Works have created a little video to explain.
Hot air balloons are about as simple as flying...
Cool, er…Actually Cold Gifts for the Holidays
Do you need to get a little something for that person who already has it all? Well, how about giving them an ice cube shaped diamond? Or better yet, an ice tray that lets them make em’ themselves! (Might even save you a few $$million).
There is a great little gift site called SpoonSisters.com...
Dude! That is so cool! I’d love to do that at home with my kids.
Why is it freezing in the metal pan, but, not the plastic one …until you touch it, that is? The kids would love the plastic one, so they could touch it and cause it to freeze.
Very cool :)
I’m going to give it a try too
I think they had touched the pans first to get some of the oil’s on it, that’s why it started to turn as they poured.
It’s the same principle that is used to create rock candy- the sodium acetate has a much lower melting point than you’d expect (around 60 C), so when it is heated in the water, the solid you see turns to a liquid that ‘blends’ into the water.
On top of this, at a high temperature water can hold much more solute than at lower temperatures, but when you lower the temperature, that solute doesn’t just precipitate out right away, you get a supersaturated solution.
By touching it, he provided a nucleus for solid crystals to start forming, then after that it was just a self-sustaining reaction. I suspect that it froze on the metal pan and not when it was poured into the plastic because:
If I got this wrong, chemists, please feel free to beat me with a large stick :)
Wow that IS cool!
Cool, it looks a bit like wax. I’ve always wondered what those multi-use bags contain that warm up when you bend them, now I know :)
Wow, that was totally awesome!! You sure conger up some cool stuff!!! I mean stories!
That’s what I would have said…..20 years ago when I took chemistry.
Yep, I read about this process a while back after seeing this video and a couple other “insta-freeze” ones somewhere. The whole instant crystallization process is awesome.. definitely makes for a fun chemistry experiment :)
Coolio!!!!!!!!!!! Im a 5th grader and thats what i’m gonna do for my science project so i guess ill give it a shot
Chemistry teacher here. I’ve done this demo in class for more years than I care to remember.
Chris R.’s explanation above is absolutely correct. Good on ya’ for paying attention in class! Sodium acetate supersaturates very easily because the acetate ion has a very “diffuse” charge when dissolved in water (it doesn’t have one particular “sticky” spot to strongly attract the positive sodium ion.)
You can make rock candy (large sugar crystals) the same way (but it doesn’t crystallize as quickly.) Dissolve as much sugar as possible in boiling water then let it cool slowly in a **clean glass** container. Then dangle a string in to provide a nucleation site.