NurdRage Presents: 3 Cool Things of Science

We demonstrate three cool things in science including silver trees, cold-activated fluorescence and the fiery reaction of sodium chlorate and candy.

First, copper wire is placed into a silver nitrate solution. This makes trees of silver crystals grow off the copper due to a redox reaction, but by eye this is extremely hard to see. Under the microscope however you can actually see this happening in real time. And if the conditions are perfectly right, it can grow quite quickly.

Second, Dr. Soprano, a colleague of Dr. N. Butyl Lithium, donated 3mg of an interesting chemical called 9,10-dihydroplatinaanthracene-4,4'-di-tert-butyl-2,2'-bipyridine. This chemical, among other things, has the property that it is only fluorescent when solid, not when liquid. So if a non-fluorescent solution is cooled with liquid nitrogen until it freezes, it becomes fluorescent.

Third, the classic reaction of sodium chlorate and candy. Molten sodium chlorate instantly ignites flammable materials and the resulting firestorm can be quite dramatic. Normally potassium chlorate is used for this demonstration but we happened to have sodium chlorate on hand.

If you have any suggestions for experiments or demonstrations, please comment!

Our website http://www.nurdrage.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• physical
• science
• nerd
• nurd
• rage
• liquid
• nitrogen
• fluorescence
• silver
• nitrate
• crystals
• trees
• sodium
• potassium
• chlorate

[NurdChaos]

@NurdRage ... Huge fan, but where do you get you vials and test tubes?

THANKS!

[nycdcheat]

heard of the prince rupert's drop?

[nickoolay]

Make a reaction between molten amonium nitrate and copper wire

[badshabz1]

hydrogen foam :D

[xXxadam5xXx]

can't the reaction with the candy and the sodium chlorate be done with other chlorates? like potassium chlorate?

[aaroncmx]

Do Tert-Butyllithium

[Chublard]

I mean picric acid

[Chublard]

@athaulfthegoth Yes they are. They are explosives. He just spelled trinitrotoluene and picramic acid wrong and wrote trinitroglycerin with a "di"

[JorgeBM2204]

You can make nitrocellulose aka guncotton and grow some nice and big cristals

[firewing33]

What in the candy made it ignite?

[punkskamp420]

@Dotatouch united nuclear sells both.

[MegaScienceguru]

can you use potassium chlorate?