Archives September 2012

YOU  NEED:

• One King of Clubs from an old deck of cards

  Your finger can act as a pistol! So it has the power to fire. Pick one of the jacks is an old deck of cards and make it the bad guy. Bend the card and stand it on the table as in the illustration. Now you are the good guy. Point your finger to the left, swing your hand suddenly clockwise, like a lawman, until you are pointing directly at the jack and shout “BANG” The king topples over as if shot!   HOW DOES IT WORK? The breeze rustled up by your hand, even though over a foot away from the card does it. Great isn’t it?

YOU  NEED:

• The jack of spades or the jack of hearts from a deck of cards
• Glass of water
• Transparent glass or plastic rod
• Paper and pencil

  Did you know that the jack on a playing card can do an about turn mysteriously while a rod meant for stirring can change the meaning of a sentence. A deck of cards has two one-eyed jacks — the jack of spades and the jack of hearts. Just hold either one behind a glass of water. If you press the jack against the side of the glass and look at him through the water, he will face in the direction he was facing just like it is on the card. Try to move the card slowly, away from the glass, and lo the jack will turn around and face in the opposite direction. Pick up a transparent glass or plastic rod or what is more...

YOU  NEED:

• A hard boiled egg
• A spoon
• A candle
• A match box

Strange as it may sound but you can actually make an egg look like it is made of silver! Put the egg on a spoon and hold it over the flame of a candle until it is completely covered with black soot. Soak the egg in water. It will take on a beautiful silver sheen.   HOW DOES IT WORK? The silvery appearance of the egg is created by thousands of tiny bubbles that are formed on the soot  covered surface of the egg. The reason is that the carbon on the soot repels the water and creates bubbles. Although the bubbles are so small that you can hardly see it, they reflect the light back to your eyes and make the shell of the egg look like it has a silver coating. more...

YOU  NEED:

• A small glass with a cone shaped interior
• A transparent glass marble
• Transparent glue
• Black paint
• A small picture
• Water

  This experiment is unique and for this you need a special glass. A glass with thick sides and a with a cone shaped interior. Take the marble, place it inside the glass and glue it firmly in place.  Apply some glue to the face of the picture and paste it to the underside of the glass with the picture side up. Now paint the bottom of the glass black to hide the picture. Now look down into the glass. Nothing can be seen. Now fill it with water. The magnified picture appears like magic. HOW DOES IT WORK? When in the air, the glass sphere acts like a convex lens with a very long focal length. Once you pour water, the sphere is surrounded more...

YOU  NEED:

• A piece of string one foot (33 cms) long
• A glass of water
• A small pitcher

  Are you aware that water can flow along a string as if it was a tube? Soak the string in water. Fill half the pitcher with water and tie one end of the string to the pitcher. The string should be pulled tightly over the Spout of the pitcher as in the illustration. Take the glass of water and tape the other end of the string inside it. After making sure that the string is taut, tilt the pitcher ever so slowly. The water will flow down the string and into the glass. HOW DOES IT WORK? As mentioned earlier water molecules tend to stick to each other. This is evident when the water is poured out of the pitcher. It comes out in a stream rather than plopping down. more...

YOU  NEED:

• Marbles of two different sizes
• Two clear plastic glasses of the same size.

  How is it that a glass filled with large marbles seems to give the impression that it has more empty spaces inside it than a similar glass filled with small marbles. The question is which glass has the bigger volume of empty space? For this experiment you need a bunch of marbles of two different sizes. Now fill up a glass to the brim with large marbles and fill the other glass with the smaller ones. Fill one of the glasses with water. Pour the water from the first glass into the second glass. The interesting thing is that you will discover that both glasses hold the same quantity of water HOW DOES IT WORK? A simple explanation is that the larger marbles have larger spaces between them thus accommodating lesser marbles in the more...

YOU  NEED:

• A plastic bottle
• A screwdriver or poker
• Some water

Would you like to do something that has a scientific reason and conclusion to it but seems to be magical? You can make three streams of water blend like magic into a single flow and then make them go their separate ways if you first pinch the three together and then brush a finger over them. Use the screwdriver to make three holes side by side near the bottom of the plastic bottle. There should be a gap of a quarter inch between the Once the bottle is filled with water, you will witness water coming out in thin streams from the three holes you have made. Now try pinching the three streams together with your thumb and forefinger. The three streams will join and form a single stream. Brush your forefinger across the holes and lo the water will sprout out separately more...

YOU  NEED:

• A 12 inches of thread
• A ping-pong ball
• Tape
• Proximity to a tape

You may not believe this but a table – tennis ball has a strange affinity for a stream of water. Find out for yourself. Take the thread and tape one end to the table tennis ball or Ping Pong ball. Turn on the tap or faucet in a sink and push the ball halfway into the stream as shown in the illustration. Normally one would expect the force of the water to knock the ball out of the water stream. But it doesn't. The ball remains static inside the stream. HOW DOES IT WORK? The air pressure on half the ball's surface over which the water flows rapidly, is reduced. The higher air pressure on the Ping-Pong ball's other half, continues to force the back into the running stream of water.

YOU  NEED:

• An ice cube
• A glass of water
• A string, salt

You can pull off this one and surprise your friends. Put the ice cube in glass of water. It floats. Lay the string alongside the glass and tell your friends that you can use the string to lift the cube out of the glass. Of course they won’t believe you. Here is what you do. Lay one end of the string across the top of the cube. Sprinkle a sizeable amount of salt on the string. Lift the string and the ice cube will come out with it. HOW DOES IT WORK? ff an ice cube is put in water, it constantly shrinks and grows because the surface melts and then re-freezes. Once salt is added to the ice cube, it keeps the water from re-freezing on the surface of the cube. The more...

YOU NEED:

• Two sheets of blank paper
• A ball point pen

   Want to send a letter secretly with no one the wiser? There is a simple way to go about it. Take one sheet of paper and wet it. Spread the paper over a hard surface like a smooth desk top, a glass window pane or a mirror. Now take a dry sheet of paper and place it over the wet one and write what you want to on the dry one by pressing hard with a ballpoint pen. Now remove the papers from the surface they has been placed on. The message you wrote is clearly visible as a water mark on the wet sheet of paper- When the sheet of paper dries, the writing disappears. It is back again like magic it the sheet is wet. HOW DOES IT WORK? The pressure created by the ball point more...