HOME CHALLENGE: 20 Easy Experiments in 5 Minutes

Hey, I'm Dianna.

You're watching Physics Girl.

I'm stuck inside, so I've challenged myself to do 20 experiments in five minutes.

That's four experiments per minute, which works out to about 15 seconds per experiment.

I have not been able to do it in any of the dry runs, but I have hope.

All of these experiments are with stuff you can find at home.

You should definitely try them.

Some of them require adult supervision, but they're all really fun.

OK, let's go.

The first experiment is a cloud in your mouth.

So you click your tongue like this, [CLICKS TONGUE], but you do it with your mouth full of air.

And then you pressurize it, OK?

Like this.

[DING] Did you see it?

Yes?

I hope so.

OK, the next one we're going to use the principle of static electricity.

Rub a balloon against your hair, and then you can move water, woo, because there's a bunch of charges in the water.

It works really, really well.

That is awesome.

OK, over here, I've got a hot pan.

It's been heating up for a while.

And I'm going to put some water on it, and the water does not act normal.

It rolls around like little balls.

It's kind of like Pac-Man.

The bigger ones eat the smaller ones.

It's awesome.

Leidenfrost effect, google it.

[DING] The next one, I've got a can here.

I'm going to put some safety goggles on for this one.

I have a can that's been heating up for a while.

There's water in it.

I'm going to turn it over into this ice water.

[POPPING] Ah!

And it crushes because of the pressure of all the atmosphere.

Oh, I still need my safety goggles for the next one.

This can is closed.

I've got a Sharpie here, and I'm going to just rub with some pressure along the edge over and over.

[POP] Oh, it pops open!

[DING] Love that one.

OK, the next one, we've got the land of fire over here.

So we've got an experiment with a candle and a bunch of water around it.

I'm going to put this jar over that, and we're going to wait a second to see what happens.

But first, I'm going to blow this candle, and you can see that you can relight the flame.

Oh, no, I think I blew it too hard.

I'm losing time.

Check out this one in the meantime.

This one's going out, and the water level goes up because the air inside shrinks.

Let's try this one again.

All right, you can relight a candle-- yes!

But I'm going to put it back out with baking soda and vinegar.

I'm not going to pour the vinegar on it.

But we've all done this experiment.

You create a bunch of carbon dioxide bubbles when you combine baking soda and vinegar.

And carbon dioxide has the benefit that it is not oxygen, so you can pour out fire.

Did you see that?

[DING] Doesn't even look like I did anything and the flame went out.

I am losing time.

OK, the next one, if you take a tea bag, like cheap Lipton Tea whatever, dump it out, you can make these little cylinders.

Light them on fire.

And then as they heat up-- oh, no!

As they heat up, they get lighter and lighter, and then they start to fly because hot air loves to rise.

Over here, I've got a bunch of needles pointing at this magnet, and they're all attached to strings.

I'm going to heat these up.

Oh, shoot!

No!

No!

OK. Oh, we're still good.

We're still good.

We've got a couple.

I'm going to heat these needles up.

And as I do... they're going to lose their magnetism because they get above-- CREW: Two minutes remaining.

DIANNA: Two minutes, oh my god.

Ah!

They get above the temperature where metal stays magnetizable, and they-- getting close on that.

That's really cool.

They-- oh, come on!

Go!

They fall.

Yes!

Yes!

OK, next one, you can bounce a ping pong ball on a stream of air.

This is the challenge island.

Right here, we've got some interlocked forks.

I'm going to take a toothpick and stick that through and use the principle of center of gravity and get the center of gravity below these balancing points, and I can balance the forks.

Amazing!

The next challenge, I'm going to take this regular string and pour some water with food coloring in it from this cup using the properties of surface tension, down the string all the way to the other cup.

I don't have time to do the entire cup, though.

You get the point.

It's super cool.

If I take a hard-boiled egg, not a soft-boiled egg.

CREW: One minute left.

DIANNA: Oh my god, one minute.

And I spin it fast enough, hoo, I can get it to stand up.

Oh, that's it.

[DING] Amazing.

OK, now take a card with a cup, turn it over.

It can hold up the cup.

Excellent.

Next one, polarizing sheets.

You can look through them and see the properties of corn syrup and how they've got amazing optical properties.

[DING] Take an Alka Seltzer tablet, put it into some water with some oil on top, and you can make your own lava lamp.

While you watch that, I'm going to take this egg and show you the property of impulse, which is that if I throw an egg, it will get caught by something with give.

But if I throw it with something with not give... [DING] Someone's going to have to clean it up.

OK, and here I've got a non-Newtonian fluid.

This acts like a solid, but then it'll act like a liquid as soon as I let it flow.

[DING] What are we at?

What are we at?

CREW: Five minutes.

DIANNA: Oh my gosh, five minutes?

No!

We have one experiment.

We have one experiment left.

One experiment left.

OK, this one uses the principle of inertia.

We've got these eggs here.

They want to stay exactly where they are.

OK, I have one shot at doing this.

I've never tried this, but I'm going to hit it.

We don't have the luxury of doing a countdown.

We're just going to go for it.

Here we go.

OK.

Yes!

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE] All right!

Oh, thank you, guys.

[GASPING] CREW: Nice.

DIANNA: Take that, science.

Yeah!

CREW: You just did 20 science experiments in five minutes and 20 seconds.

How do you feel?

DIANNA: I feel amazing.

I feel good.

I feel a little sad that I missed it by 20 seconds.

And it felt good to have an amazing team supporting the production.

[LAUGHTER] [MUSIC PLAYING]