Brb gonna go make a baking soda volcano in my sink
While I can attest that many of my pre-med counterparts chose the major in the genuine pursuit of bettering the lives of others, it’s fair to say that more than a few were exploring the sciences purely to learn cool but largely useless knowledge (someone validate my life and ask me about the mating rituals of Bowerbirds) and to aggressively create/destroy things. While Ochem and Biochem slaughtered much of my self worth, turning that frown upside down, I had the opportunity to create some pretty ridiculous reactions (mostly unsupervised with massive gas and fire sources) after ignoring the fact that most reagents had skull and cross bones all over the packaging. I still have a fleeting hope that my 6+ years of exposure to beta mercaptoethanol will turn my children into wizards. Youtube, the best rabbit hole for procrastination, allows you to experience some of these fun science experiments without going Breaking Bad and unknowingly turning your apartment into a Meth Lab. Watch the below and try not to go home to make your own Nickelodeon Slime:
Mercury(II) Thiocyanate decomposition might just be one of the weirdest chemical reactions. It’s an inorganic chemical compound that when in the presence of a strong enough heat source, a rapid exothermic reaction is started and produces a large mass of coiling solid, an effect known as the Pharaoh’s serpent.
If you mix play sand with a little bit of polymer (polydimenthyl siloxane) and add a few other non-toxic chemicals, you’ll get kinetic sand. Its particles flow freely and loosely stick together, turning it into playful “concrete”.
While the chance is strong that you’ll never need to know how lava lamps are mass produced, this is a 3 minute chunk of your life you can fill with such knowledge.
This video is a mere 2:20 and is completely hypnotizing. Based upon the fact that the average person eats about 6 pounds of potato chips a year – and I don’t care how much kale you eat, I know you’ve housed a sleeve of Pringles during some dark night of self loathing – the least you can do is respect the art of the processed potato.
Nothing groundbreaking – this is literally paint being spread. However it’s remarkably captivating.