• Question: What is your favourite experiment

    Asked by anon-312850 on 7 Mar 2022. This question was also asked by anon-321072, anon-321062, anon-314271.
    • Photo: Emma Gibson

      Emma Gibson answered on 7 Mar 2022:

      not sure on my favourite, but working at the synchrotron last week using xrays to look at a sample as it went from room temp to 1000C was pretty fun

    • Photo: TJ Preston

      TJ Preston answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      Do you know about the Foucault pendulum? It is a heavy ball swinging back and forth on a very long string. If you start it swinging, it keeps going while the Earth spins during the day. You can find them in some museums. That’s one experiment I always look at again whenever I see one. Take a look.

    • Photo: Veselina Georgieva

      Veselina Georgieva answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      My favourite one is from school. A reaction that is called Gold rain – Is a chemical reaction between Pb(NO3)2 and KI. The precipitate looks like gold rain particles in the water. It is lovely

    • Photo: Richa Sharma

      Richa Sharma answered on 21 Mar 2022:

      The ones where I create dyes that fluoresce from green to cyan to blue to yellow under UV light. Its a riot of glowing colours and I love it. More so when these dyes go and sit on bacteria and make them glow too.

Comments

  • Photo: Richa

    Richa commented on :

    Well, its always the ones where I can put together my chemistry and biology – and get amazed at the results. The week before, I wanted to see how our newly developed ‘green’ dye worked. So I grew some pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus – the one causing food poisoning; and Streptococcus – the one responsible for strep throat). I added our fluorescent green dye to these bugs. Put them under the microscope in a really dark room! And yes – could see all of my bugs – and they were green, like green stars in a night sky!

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    I love simple experiments that can give you an answer to a question quickly. For example, we sometimes need to know if a sample contains high levels of chloride. We can check this using ion chromatography, which requires accurate preparation of the sample and of a standard, setting up of the system, and data processing, which takes at least 1/2 day. Or we can just add a rough solution of silver nitrate to a rough solution of sample, and check if a precipitate is formed, which takes 10 minutes. If a precipitate if formed, the answer is yes, the sample contains high levels of chloride, and it only took 10 minutes!

  • Photo: Vesi

    Vesi commented on :

    My favourite experiment is one that I used to show to students in Bulgaria. I am not sure if this is popular here but it is called “Gold rain”. It is a chemical reaction between Lead(II) nitrate and Potassium iodide. Mixing these two reagents leads to a beautiful precipitate that looks like gold particles in a water. It is amazing to see it:)

  • Photo: Amit

    Amit commented on :

    Experiments related to mimicking or imitating enzymes for certain chemical reactions are my favorite experiments. I like to develop artificial enzymes.