Easy Science Tricks

There are many fun, simple ways to see the odder aspects of science in the home. Many of these require only common household materials, and even ones that take a bit more work are still relatively simple. Use these to learn about science, or just to have some unique fun on a lazy afternoon.

Non-Newtonian fluids are fairly common, but some of them display particularly interesting properties – namely, when struck with a hard and spread-out force, they act as a solid, but they act like a liquid when touched slowly. All you need to create your own non-Newtonian fluid is corn starch and water. Take water and start stirring in increasing amounts of corn starch until it becomes intensely difficult to stir the mixture. To test, poke with a finger or a spoon – you should feel resistance that then gives way. You can then play with the liquid as you want. Try slapping it, then slowly sticking a finger in, and then play with whatever other reactions you want to test. It’s even possible to walk on this mixture, although it is not particularly recommended for home experimentation unless you have a lot of corn starch and a kiddie pool. The mechanics behind this relate to how Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids react to ‘shear’ – Newtonian fluids react the same regardless of shear, while non-Newtonian fluids do not.

Most people know at least something about acids and bases, and this experiment will let you test to see what around the house is what using red cabbage. First, take about two cups worth of red cabbage, chopped into cubes about one inch across on a side, and one cup of water. Add these to a blender and blend until the mixture is fairly even. Then strain the mixture. The resulting liquid is your extract. Once you have it, you can begin testing! Begin with an obvious acid, like vinegar, and an obvious base, like laundry ammonia, and add a bit of the extract to each. Acids should turn the mixture more red, while bases will turn it greener. You can now figure out the general pH balance of anything around the house.

Asking why the sky is blue is common, and a fairly simple experiment provides both an answer and a demonstration. Take a flashlight, a glass half-full of water, and a carton of milk. Shine your flashlight through the water and look at the glass from all sides – from head on the flashlight looks white, and from the sides nearly nothing can be seen. Then add a bit of milk. The light will look more yellow from the front, and the beam will be faintly visible and bluish from the side. Keep adding milk and the effect will continue to build. Much the same thing happens in the atmosphere – light from the sun bounces around in our atmosphere, and blue light bounces the most, so it disperses throughout the sky. At sunset, when the amount of air between you and the sun is greater, so much light is bent that the sky turns pink and the sun looks red. Everything else is bent away.

There are many more fun and simple experiments, of course, but here are a few to start with.