Playing with mad science

Andrew Edwards

Fire. Melting green heads. Foamy concoctions. Don’t worry, it’s just

science.

Scientific inquiry moved out of the clinical world of the lab to

the airy environs of Central Park as the young ladies attending

Huntington Beach Girl Scout Day Camp capped off their summer with a

playful science demonstration by “Mad Scientist” Tom Knox.

In one demonstration, Knox started a fire to force “Eggbert” the

egg through a tight squeeze. Eggbert was too round to fit through the

mouth of a beaker, but with a flame burning inside the container,

Eggbert slipped right through.

How did he do it? Air pressure, Knox explained. By burning up all

the oxygen inside the beaker, outside air rushed into the glass,

pushing Eggbert inside on the way.

“All the air out here, what did it do?” Knox asked. “It pushed, it

pushed, it pushed him in.”

The next science trick was like the climactic scene in “The Wizard

of Oz,” Knox said. A witchy green head made out of Styrofoam was

reduced to nothing by 8-year-old Brianna Emerzian, who squeezed a

bottle of acetone onto the foam head, which seemed to disappear as

its molecules were torn apart by the chemical.

“It was cool,” Brianna said. “I learned that things can melt.”

Styrofoam is polymer, Knox explained. Polymers are compounds made

up of chains of molecules, and the acetone destroys the bonds that

hold the molecules together.

“It turns them into mush,” Knox said.

The climax of the event was dry ice. Knox touched a metal pair of

scissors to a block of the frozen carbon dioxide, and the children

heard a piercing squeal result from the contact.

The dry ice was 190 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, Knox said. The

squealing was the sound of heat being transferred from the

room-temperature scissors.

“Energy’s given off,” Knox said. “That’s why you hear the sound

you do.”

After listening, all the campers took turns tasting. Knox dropped

a chunk of dry ice into a beaker filled with water, and the children

formed a line to taste the mist that came out of the beaker like

smoke from a chimney.

“I think it tasted like nothing,” 13-year-old Erica Hardy said.

“It was just mist.”

There was no flavor because carbon dioxide has no taste, Knox

said.

For the grand finale, Knox mixed soap, water and dry ice and let

the campers wash their hands with the chilly foam that rose out of

the beaker. Bubbles poured out, and burst into mists that were

carried away by the breeze.

“You take it and it feels cold and kind of stings for a second,”

8-year-old Sabrina George said. “Then it fades away into smoke.”