By the time you finish reading this article, you will undoubtedly think of Theo Gray when you hear someone say "mad scientist."

Theo, a columnist for the magazine Popular Science, recently published a book titled Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home - But Probably Shouldn't. The book is full of experiments so outrageous (Ignite your own phosphorus sun in a globe filled with pure oxygen! Make your own shotgun ammo by pouring molten lead off the roof! Heat a hot tub with 500 pounds of quicklime!) that it sounds like a parent's nightmare. It's actually quite the opposite: there's no a better way to spark the imagination of the young minds of proto-scientists than to bring science to life with Theo's hands-on experiments. Yes, these are dangerous experiments but that's why they're so much fun!

1. Gag with a Spoon: The Melting Spoon Prank

Behind the gorgeous photos of each experiment, there is solid science explained in clear, accessible language with a little dash of humor that made Theo's monthly PopSci column so popular. You'll see. Let's dive into the excerpts of the Mad Science book. Here's Neatorama's premiere Spotlight article,, by Theo Gray ...





DISAPPEARING ACT - A steaming cup of water liquefies the spoon in

about 15 seconds - notice the puddle at the bottom of the cup. Photo:

Jeff Sciortino.

With the right mix of metals, you can make an alloy that turns

to liquid at nearly any temperature.

Mention liquid metal, and people immediately think of mercury. After

all, it is the only metal that isn't solid at room temperature. Well,

not quite - it's the only pure metal, but there are many alloys (mixtures

of metals) that will melt well below that point. For example, the mercury-filled

fever thermometers that children were told not to play with in the 1950s

and '60s have been replaced by virtually identical ones containing the

far less toxic Galinstan, a patented liquid alloy of gallium, indium and

tin.

Those who were kids in that era may also remember playing with another

low-melting-point alloy: trick spoons that melted when you tried to stir

your coffee with them. These were made with a blend that, no surprise,

was highly toxic; it typically contained cadmium, lead, mercury or all

three. But, as it happens, it's possible to make alloys that liquefy in

a hot drink using safer components.

A few months ago I created a batch of these prank spoons as a gift for

my friend and fellow element buff Oliver Sacks (author of Awakenings

and Uncle

Tungsten).

I cast jewelers' molding rubber around a fancy spoon to form the mold.

Then I looked up the formula for an alloy that would melt at 140 °F,

roughly the temperature of a cup of hot coffee, and found this one: 51

percent indium, 32.5 percent bismuth and 16.5 percent tin.

After the spoon turns to a puddle at the bottom of the cup, you can pour

off the liquid and touch the metal, feeling the weird sensation of it

hardening around your fingertip. When Sacks has used up all his spoons,

he can easily recover the metal, melt it again over a cup of hot water,

pour it into the mold, and make new ones - the trick-spoon circle of life.

So why can't you buy these nontoxic prank utensils in toy stores, as

you could the toxic versions of years past? Price. Indium costs about

three times as much as silver. (I get mine from a bulk supplier in China.)

Using gallium, you can make alloys that melt in lukewarm water or even

in your hand, but it's more expensive than indium, and it tends to stain

the glass and discolor skin. Unfortunately, no alloy replicates the low

cost, bright shine and nonstick fun of mercury. Too bad we know now that

playing with it for too long can give you brain damage.



How To Create a Melting Spoon





WHAT YOU NEED











Bismuth, indium and tin



Stainless-steel pan



Rubber or plastic spoon mold















Make

a mold by casting or forming jewelers' rubber around the object

you want to duplicate. Weigh

out the metals in the correct ratio: 51 percent indium, 32.5 percent

bismuth and 16.5 percent tin. If you're within a gram, it'll still

work. Combine

the ingredients in a stainless-steel measuring cup and heat directly

on a stove over low heat. You'll need to go well beyond the melting

point of the final alloy in order to get the tin and bismuth to

combine with the indium. Stir continuously.



Let

the alloy cool, then reheat it over nearly boiling water. A double-boiler

works, or you can just hold the measuring cup in the hot water

for a minute or two. Pour

the molten metal into the mold. While it may be tempting to hold

the mold in your hand, the metal is hot enough that it will burn

if you spill too much on yourself. It is no more, but also not

any less, dangerous than boiling water.



Wait

until you are sure the metal has solidified in the mold. This

may take longer than you think since the melting point is so low. Carefully

extract the spoon from the mold. Enjoy!

Stirred in nearly boiling water, a typical spoon will melt in

seconds.









Official webpage: Official webpage: Gag

with a Spoon

2. Calling Van Helsing: How to Build Your Own Werewolf Killers





BULLET PARTS - [from left] Bullion bars and rounds, the cheapest source

of pure silver; the graphite mold, opened after casting a bullet; the

profile bit used to machine the mold; silver bullets as cast and polished

to a mirror finish. Photo: Mike Walker.





(L) TURNING THE BIT - Using a lathe to create the milling bit that will

be used to make the graphite mold. (R) LIQUID METAL - Molten silver at

1,800 °F pours into a graphite bullet mold from an electric jewelers'

melting cup. Photos: Mike Walker.

Suss the myth from the reality with a hands-on investigation

into the original anti-werewolf weapon.

Like darning socks, making bullets is a dying art. Used to be just about

everyone with a need for ammo poured their own, using iron or even wooden

molds. These days only a few diehard hobbyists still do it, and they use

aluminum molds. But even fewer people still make silver bullets.

Actually, not many people ever made silver bullets. It's a difficult

process, and their efficacy against werewolves has never been scientifically

proven. I suppose their renown came from the perception that silver was

a distinguished metal, often spoken of in connection with its higher class

cousin, gold. But today silver is far more common, and it tarnishes over

time, primarily because of sulfur pollution from power plants. (By and

large, it didn't tarnish before the Industrial Age.)

I couldn't find any references describing real historical silver-bullet-crafting

techniques. At 1,764 °F, molten silver would ruin traditional and

modern bullet molds. They could have been fashioned using jewelers' methods,

but that would require a new plaster mold for every bullet. Frankly, I

think people spent a lot more time talking about silver bullets than they

did turning them out.

I don't like legends that are all talk, so I decided to see what it takes

to produce a real silver bullet: not plated, not sterling - pure silver.

To create the mold, I first had to construct a bit. I used a lathe to

turn a steel rod into a bullet-like shape, then used a milling machine

to cut away a quarter-circle wedge of the rod, leaving a sharp cutting

edge. Basically I had built a router bit shaped like a bullet. (I've fabricated

bits like this freehand with a file, which works fine; it just takes longer.

Much longer.)

After using the bit to machine the graphite bullet mold, I used an electrically

heated graphite crucible to pour in the 0.999 fine liquid silver at about

2,000 °F, which is 230 °F above its melting point. The mold must

be preheated with a blowtorch to keep the silver from solidifying before

it fills the whole cavity. One of the benefits of using graphite is that

it keeps the silver from oxidizing, so bullets come out bright and shiny.

Would a silver bullet really fire? Probably. (Though, not being an experienced

gunsmith, I would never be foolish enough to try my bullets in a real

gun.) Bullets need to be fairly soft so that they can take on the shape

of spiral grooves in the gun's barrel, and pure silver is moderately soft.

It's also similar in density to lead, so it should have similar aerodynamics

and muzzle velocity. I'd guess silver would make a very nice nontoxic

substitute for lead in bullets. Too bad about the cost: These one-ounce,

large-caliber rifle bullets use about $12 worth of silver per shot - best

reserved for only the most severe werewolf infestations.



How To Build Your Own Werewolf Killers





WHAT YOU NEED











Several ounces of silver



Graphite blocks



Milling machine







Jewelers' melting cup



Lathe



Fire extinguisher







Safety glasses















There are several ways to make mold suitable for casting silver.

This is the method I used, not necessarily the best method. Whatever you

do, don't ever try firing silver bullets out of real guns, which are designed

for lead ammunition. While relatively soft compared to other metals, silver

is still harder than lead and will act differently. The likely outcome

of such an attempt is death by explosive failure of the firearm.













Start

with a steel rod slightly larger in diameter than the bullet you

want to make, and place it in a metal lathe. Machine the shape

of bullet you want. I made something like a Civil War-era bullet,

or at least what I vaguely remember such bullets looking like

from pictures I might have seen years ago. You're not going to

actually use this bullet, so the exact shape is not important. Turn

down the shaft to about 1/4-inch diameter for a distance of about

3/8 inch. This will become the pour hole. Clamp

the bullet shaped rod horizontally on a milling machine table

and use a square-end mill to cut out less than a quarter of the

material. Now you've got a simple milling bit shaped like a bullet.

There is no need to sharpen it, as graphite is extremely soft.

Cut

and machine smooth two 1-inch-thick blocks of graphite about 2

inches square. Clamp them together to form a 2-inch-thick block,

then drill four 1/4-inch holes through both blocks at the corners. Separate

the two blocks by about an inch and clamp them together, at the

same time in the same vice, then position the bullet-shaped bit

between them. Use

the milling machine to cut into one of the two blocks. Cut exactly

half the diameter of the bit, forming half a mold. Move the table

in the opposite direction and cut exactly halfway into the second

block, forming the other half of the mold.

Assemble

the mold with 1/4-inch steel rods through the four index holes.

If necessary, enlarge the top of the pour hole with a countersinking

bit to form a convenient cone shape. Melt

a couple of ounces of pure silver (99.9 percent silver is recommended

for werewolves) using a jewelers' melting cup. Pour

the silver into the mold and allow to cool. If you get incomplete

bullets, it's because the silver is hardening before it fills

the mold. The solution is to heat up the mold with a torch before

pouring in the silver. When

the mold is cold, pull it apart. Saw off the sprue and file down

the back end of the bullet, then polish to a mirror finish, since

you're going to be displaying this bullet proudly, not actually

using it in a gun.









Official webpage: Official webpage: Calling

Van Helsing

3. Build Your Own Lightbulb





A VERY BIG BULB - The stick welder [left] provides enough juice to

heat a tungsten rod to nearly 5,000 °F. The ice bucket acts as the

bulb, and the helium displaces oxygen. Photo: Mike Walker.

Act as if you're smarter than Edison: Construct a lightbulb the

modern way with some helium and an old welder.

Thomas Edison famously spent months trying to make a lightbulb work.

He tested one material after another in an evacuated bell jar before he

finally got a carbon filament to burn long enough to sell it with a straight

face. When I had a free afternoon recently, I thought I'd see if I could

do it too.

Edison's first mistake was living before tungsten wire was available.

Tungsten is way better than carbon as a filament material, and now you

can find it in any metal-supply shop. It lasts longer, is less brittle,

and glows with a cleaner, whiter light. His second mistake, repeated in

classroom physics demonstrations to this day, was using a vacuum to get

the air out of the bulb. Clearing out the air is important because at

yellow to white heat (3,500 °F to 5,000 °F), pretty much all known

materials, even tungsten filament wire, react with oxygen and burn up

in a few seconds. Remove the oxygen, and the wire can't burn. But a vacuum

is the hard way to solve that problem. You need an expensive vacuum pump,

a thick glass bell jar to withstand the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere,

and several nonleaking pipe joints.

It's a whole lot easier to just displace the air with an inert gas that's

at the same pressure as the surrounding air, which is how most modern

bulbs work. Common household lightbulbs use a mixture of argon and nitrogen.

Fancy krypton flashlights and xenon headlamps use those eponymous heavier

noble gases to allow the filament to burn longer and hotter.

I used helium because it's easily available and lighter than air, allowing

me to fill my bulb, an upside down glass ice bucket (wedding present,

I believe), from the bottom. The helium floated up, displacing the air

inside. With a steady stream flowing in, I didn't even need to seal the

bucket very well - I just wrapped a sheet of tinfoil over the bottom to

keep eddies of air from wafting in.

For a filament, I used a thick tungsten wire I had lying around the shop

and, for the power supply, a small stick welder I got at an auction. It

supplied about 50 amps at 30 volts, giving me a 1,500 watt bulb. When

I powered up the filament without the bucket in place, it produced a prodigious

quantity of tungsten-oxide smoke and didn't last very long. But with the

bucket on and a steady flow of helium, the filament glowed brightly and

cleanly.

It must have been truly thrilling for Edison when he finally got one

of these things to work for the first time. I know I was thrilled, even

though I slaved over mine for only about 30 minutes and it worked perfectly

the first time - well, the first time I didn't forget to turn on the helium.



How To Turn a Jar Into a Lightbulb





WHAT YOU NEED











Tank of pure helium or argon



Tungsten welding rod or thick tungsten wire



Transparent bucket or large-mouth jar







Stick welder



Tinfoil or plastic wrap



Safety glasses















Clamp

a 1/16-inch diameter tungsten welding electrode (available at

any welding supply store or well-stocked hardware store) between

the two electrode clamps of a stick welder that have been secured

in an upright position. Invert

a glass bowl or pitcher over the setup, but keep the glass well

away from the electrode and clamps.

Seal

the bottom loosely with tinfoil (don't let it short out the electrodes). Run

a tube from a helium tank through the tinfoil. Use pure helium,

not balloon helium, which sometimes has oxygen mixed in to prevent

asphyxiation. Turn

on the helium and keep a steady stream flowing into the bowl.

It will rise to the top and eventually fill the container.

Turn

on the welder and stand by to switch it off in a hurry if things

get out of hand. Potential problems include the glass breaking

from the heat, or the electrode burning through the glass. If

the electrode smokes, it means there's not enough helium in the

container, or your helium is not pure. Alternately,

use a tank of argon, in which case the bowl should be right side

up with the electrodes coming down from the top (because argon

is heavier than air).









Official webpage: Official webpage: Build

Your Own Lightbulb

4. Making a Deadly Sun





ONE BAD BALL - A white phosphorus 'sun'. The smoke is phosphorus pentoxide.

Photo: Mike Walker.





HUNK O' BURNING SUN - White phosphorus burning in air glows with a phosphorescent

beauty. Photo: Mike Walker.





(1) Suspend the white phosphorus in the center of a lobe filled with pure

oxygen. (2) The burning phosphorus rapidly fills the globe with thick

white smoke. (3) The chip of phosphorus burns energetically for more than

a minute. (4) CLOUDY SUN - It takes about a minute for the phosphorus

to burn itself up, leaving only smoke. Photo: Mike Walker.

From urine to firebombs - white phosphorus is among the nastiest

of elements.

In 1669 the pompous German alchemist Hennig Brandt accidentally discovered

white phosphorus while boiling urine in Hamburg. He became the talk of

the town by demonstrating its amazing luminous powers to scientists and

dignitaries.

In a cruel irony, 274 years later the discovery he'd hoped would turn

lead into gold instead turned his city to ashes when a thousand tons of

white-phosphorus incendiary bombs created one of the great firestorms

of World War II; 37,000 people died when the sky burned over Hamburg.

Yet even today, white phosphorus is still used as a weapon.

I've used red phosphorus to make a batch of kitchen matches. Although

both red and white phosphorus contain nothing but the pure element, red

is mostly harmless on its own, whereas white is near the top in every

category of dangerous. It'll ignite spontaneously and burn vigorously

until you deprive it of oxygen. One tenth of a gram inhaled is fatal,

and smaller doses over time can make your jaw fall off (seriously - it's

called phossy jaw).

The difference is that white phosphorus is a waxy paste consisting of

highly strained atoms bound into tetrahedrons. The energy in their chemical

bonds is bursting to get out, causing white's high reactivity. The atoms

of red phosphorus are linked in relatively stable chains. Same element,

very different properties.

Brandt was trying to turn lead into gold, and finding a substance that

glows in the dark seemed like a big step in the right direction. Of course,

it wasn't, and he died poor after spending two wives' fortunes on boiled

urine. (Alchemists were obsessed with urine because it's yellow and they

were trying to make gold. Transmuting lead into gold is possible, but

it turns out you need a nuclear reactor, not buckets of pee.)

Still, the discovery of white phosphorus was an important one in early

chemistry. These days it is used in many ways, including the phosphoric

acid in nearly all colas. It's also used in a particularly beautiful classroom

demonstration of its extreme flammability and brilliant yellow light.

Just hope you never see that light in your neighborhood.



How To Contain a Phosphorus Sun





WHAT YOU NEED











Half a gram of white phosphorus



Pure oxygen gas or liquid oxygen



Fire extinguisher







16-inch-glass globe



Fume hood



Safety glass







Rubber gloves



















Suspend

about half a gram of white phosphorus in the center of a globe filled

with pure oxygen, then touch it with the end of a warm rod to ignite

it.

The

burning phosphorus rapidly fills the globe with thick white smoke,

demonstrating one of its military applications: as a smoke screen.

The

chip of phosphorus burns energetically for more than a minute. The

resulting glowing ball is what gives rise to the term "phosphorus

sun."









REAL

DANGER ALERT: White phosphorus is extremely toxic: A tenth of

a gram can be fatal. It catches fire at a temperature only slightly above

room temperature and is illegal to possess in many states.







Official webpage: White phosphorus is extremely toxic: A tenth ofa gram can be fatal. It catches fire at a temperature only slightly aboveroom temperature and is illegal to possess in many states.Official webpage: Making

a Deadly Sun

5. Trap Lightning in a Block





[YouTube Clip]

Freeze a charge screaming through solid plastic - or printer

toner - to see how electricity moves.

There are many unusual things to see around Newton Falls, Ohio - the

Wal-Mart with hitching posts for Amish buggies, the Army base with helicopters

and tanks proudly arranged on hills - but I was here for the most unusual

thing of all: the local Dynamitron. I was here to make frozen lightning.

The Kent State Neo Beam facility's Dynamitron is a four-story-tall, five-million-volt

particle accelerator much like a tube TV, only bigger (Yes, tube TVs are

domestic particle accelerators.) Both Dynamitrons and TVs use high voltages

and magnets to slam electrons into a target. In a TV, that's the phosphor

screen; in this Dynamitron, it's usually plastic plumbing components being

hardened by the beam. But when I joined the team of retired electrical

engineer Bert Hickman and physicists Bill Hathaway and Kim Goins, the

product was Lichtenberg figures, lightning bolts permanently recorded

in a block of clear acrylic.

With the Dynamitron - rented for the day - adjusted to around three million

volts, it blasts electrons about halfway through half-inch-thick pieces

of acrylic sheet. The plastic is a very good insulator, so it traps the

electrons inside. Coming out of the machine, the blocks don't look any

different, but they hold a hornet's nest of electrons desperate to get

out.

Left alone, the electrons will stay trapped for hours, but a knock with

a sharp point opens a path for them to make a quick escape. Electrons

gather from all parts of the block, joining up to form larger and larger

streams of electric current on their way toward the exit point. As the

charge leaves, it heats up and damages the plastic along the branching

trails it follows, leaving a permanent trace of its path. If you could

see inside a thundercloud in the nanoseconds before a bolt of lightning

emerged, you would see the same kind of pattern. The bolt doesn't just

pop up fully formed; it has to gather charge from all over the cloud.

You can create similar, if less permanent Lichtenberg figures using toner

powder from a copier or printer and any common source of static electricity.

This is how German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg first did it

in the late 18th century (he used powdered sulfur), which at the time

represented one of the great discoveries in the history of electricity.

Today, the figures are a great way to learn about electrical discharge

- and can make a cool souvenir from an afternoon with a very expensive

machine.



How To Make Your Own Lightning Pattern





WHAT YOU NEED











Wimshurst or Van de Graaff static electricity machine



Metal point and wire



Clean, dry, untreated acrylic sheet







Toner powder



















Place

a sharp metal point so it touches the center of a sheet of insulating

material. (Lichtenberg used resin made from tree sap; today, clear

acrylic works well.)

Use

a Wimshurst machine, a Van de Graaff generator, or vigorous shuffling

on shag carpeting to build up static electricity, and then touch

the metal point with your finger or with the machine's electrode

to discharge it.



This forms a pattern of stranded charge on the plastic. The Lichtenberg

figure is there; you just can't see it.

Blow

toner powder over the surface. It will stick to the static electricity,

revealing a beautiful Lichtenberg figure. Lichtenberg's discovery

ultimately led to photocopiers and laser printers, where the charge

is laid down in patterns of words and images.









Official webpage: Official webpage: Trap

Lightning in a Block

6. Nickel Growing in Trees





WASTE NUT - These nodules of chrome and nickel build up over time

from the process of electroplating bumpers. Photo: Chuck Shotwell.





Electroplating uses electricity to turn dissolved ions into a thin layer

of solid metal bonded to a surface. Photo: Chuck Shotwell.

Electroplating makes bumpers shiny and rustproof. It also makes

these beautiful bits of industrial waste.

If there were a contest for most attractive industrial waste, these nickel-chromium

nodules would win hands-down. As intricate as the veins on a leaf, brighter

than a '57 Chevy in the noonday sun, they grow naturally in tanks of chemicals

simmering gently in a bumper factory somewhere in the Midwest. Eventually

workers whack them off with hammers and dump them in barrels for recycling.

Bumpers are stamped out of steel and elecroplated with a thousandth of

an inch of nickel (for rustproofing) followed by 65 billionths of an inch

of mirror-bright chromium (for shine). Everything you see is chromium,

yet it represents no more than a millionth the weight of the bumper.

Electroplating uses electricity to turn dissolved ions into solid metal

bonded to a surface. Bumpers sit in a vat of acid containing dissolved,

positively charged nickel ions. A current is run through the solution,

forcing negatively charged electrons from the bumper into each nickel

ion, neutralizing it. The ions bond to the bumper, plating it with a very

thin layer of solid metal. After the nickel is applied, robot cranes transfer

the bumpers to tanks of chromic acid, where the same process adds a coating

of chrome.

Titanium bolts and T-shaped wing nuts attach the bumpers to titanium

frames carrying about 10,000 amps at around three volts. The bolts, nuts

and frames are coated with rubber-like insulation, but it's never perfect.

Tiny cracks and nicks form over time, allowing electrons to escape and

the metal to start depositing. Bumpers go through the line only once,

but the frames and T-nuts are dipped repeatedly. Over dozens of chrome

and nickel baths, these wonderful nodules build up.

In a week, the factory I visited turns tons of nickel and chrome into

thousands of gleaming beauties. It also makes about 10,000 bumpers.

Official webpage: Nickel

Growing in Trees

7. Shattering the Strongest Glass

















[YouTube Clip]





SHATTERED GLASS - A piece of tempered glass shatters all over from

a blow to one corner.

Explosive glass drops demonstrate why your car windshield is

so strong and safe.

If you want a scientific display of the dangers of pent-up stress, Prince

Rupert's drops are it. After the trauma of being dropped molten-hot into

a bucket of cold water, these glass balls, named for a 17th-century amateur

scientist, turn into bundles of high tension. They're impervious to even

the strongest blows, until you find their hot button: Flick the tail,

and they explode.

When molten glass hits cold water, its outer surface cools rapidly and

shrinks as it solidifies. Since the center is still fluid, it can flow

to adjust to the outer shell's smaller size. As the center eventually

cools and solidifies, it also shrinks, but now the outer shell is already

solid and can't change its shape to accommodate the smaller core.

The result is a great deal of internal stress, as the center pulls the

outside in from all sides. Like a tightly wound spring, the glass is set

to release a lot of energy. If you break the thin glass at the tail, a

chain reaction travels like a shock wave through the drop. As each section

breaks, it releases enough energy to break the next section, and so on,

shattering the whole drop in less than a millisecond.

Paradoxically, the same tension also makes the Prince Rupert's drop stronger.

Glass breaks when tiny scratches pull apart and spread into fractures.

Since the surface is compressed by internal stress, scratches can't grow,

and the glass is very difficult to break. I took a hammer to the thick

end of some drops, which I got from a local glassmaker, and they stayed

intact. Even the tail is stronger than it looks.

Tempered glass, common in cars and glass doors, works the same way. Jets

of cold air are used to rapidly (but not too rapidly) cool the surface

of hot sheets of glass, creating a milder internal tension that keeps

the surface compressed at all times. That's why tempered glass is extremely

strong but shatters into thousands of pieces when it does finally break.

This shattering actually makes it safer, because there are no large pieces

to act like knives or spears. The lesson here is that stress makes you

stronger but inside that tough exterior lurks a potential explosion. And

stay off my tail, OK?



How To Make and Break Glass





WHAT YOU NEED











Glass makers' furnace



Metal rod to pick up molten glass



Water about one foot deep







Safety glasses















Note: Creating Prince Rupert's drop requires a glass-melting furnace,

typically a gas-powered kiln-type affair with a clay pot full of molten

glass. If you don't have one, find a local art glass studio and sweet-talk

your way in.











Fill

a bucket or tank with water at least a foot or so deep. Take

a dollop of molten glass out of the pot with a metal pole (the

type used for glassblowing), rotating it constantly to keep the

glass centered on end.

Move

the glass over the tank of water and stop rotating the rod, allowing

the blob of glass to drip off the end and into the water. After

20 seconds or so, the drop will cool enough to be removed from

the water (if it didn't shatter spontaneously while cooling).

Wear eye protection! These little buggers will go off at the slightest

provocation.

The

drops typically come with very long tails, up to several feet

long. When you're ready, and wearing full wraparound eye protection,

snap the tail. Get

out the broom, because you've just acquired a roomful of glass

sand.









Official webpage: Official webpage: Shattering

the Strongest Glass

About

Theo Gray

Theo Gray is the author of Popular Science magazine's "Gray

Matter" column, the proprietor of periodictable.com, and

the creator of the iconic photographic periodic-table poster seen in universities,

schools, museums and TV shows from MythBusters to Hannah

Montana. In his other life, he is co-founder of the major software

company Wolfram Research, creators of the world's leading technical software

system, Mathematica®. He lives in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home - But

Probably Shouldn't



Autographed copy

from the official website | Amazon

Links: Official website (Graysci.com)

| Gray Matter column |

Theo Gray's personal website

This article excerpts Theo Gray's Mad Science book with permission.

All images and text are copyright © by Theodore Gray.

Win a Free Copy of the Mad Science Book



What's your most memorable/funniest experience in science class? The best comment will win a free copy of Theo Gray's Mad Science book.

Update 2/26/10 - Great comments, guys! Congratulations to eam492 who won the book!