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Surprising Science Demonstrations?

Posted by michael on from the weird-science dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "I have been called upon to conduct some science workshops for children of various ages, and I'm looking for some good demos. In particular, I've found that demos are most effective at getting students to think when they give a surprising or unexpected result, such as the classic two-slit experiment (or, for the extreme crowd, demonstrating the Leidenfrost effect by sticking one's hand into a vat of molten lead [PDF]). I'd like the Slashdot crowd's suggestions." Please don't do the lead one.

5 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. Security Fix for FP version 19.0-SP1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Our apologies for posting a version of FP which contains a security flaw. In our zeal to get FP, we dropped the ball. Thanks to Anne Tomlinson for pointing out the bug and workaround.

    This new release fixes all known bugs. Thx.

  2. I've got your two-slit experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    right here

  3. Re:some good ones by the+gnat · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I know this is horrendously off-topic, but I'd just like to say that's one badass user name you have. I'm glad someone else enjoyed that book as much as I did.

  4. Exploding head trick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Put a grenade in your mouth, pull the pin and blow up your head. It always gets a reaction from the crowd, and the best part is you die, so you don't have to clean up afterwards!

  5. Soap bubble crystals from the Feynman Lectures by MichaelCrawford · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    I have never actually seen or done this, but I was quite impressed to read about simulating metal crystallization in The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

    He gives a formula for high-quality soap bubble solution, where the bubbles will last a long time without popping from evaporation.

    Then you can generate thousands of small bubbles that are of extremely uniform size by placing a glass tube with a modest air flow under the surface of a steadily spinning pan of water.

    Instead of simple foam, the bubbles make a close-packed formation like the way your grocer stacks oranges. The bubbles form crystals.

    But there are different nucleation centers, and their will be crystal boundaries where crystals with different alignments but against each other.

    Gradually the bubbles at the boundaries will align with one side or the other, and some crystals will grow while others shrink.

    There are some nice photos in the Feynman lectures, check it out.

    I can't seem to find my copy or I'd give you a page number. I think they're still packed in a box from when I moved.

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.