Location: Adler Planetarium
Date: Thursday, November 20, 2014; 5:30-10:00
pm
 |
| Space stinks |
The theme was this month was “Galactic Gastronomy”, meaning it was a food theme…which always
peaks my interest. Michael sent us a
bunch of experiments to review and they were termed as “Bar Tricks”. I was running
late and so jumped in a cab, which got stuck in traffic. So the driver dropped me off in the middle of
a busy road with oncoming traffic and a railing preventing me from crossing
over to the sidewalk. With life and limb
intact I finally arrived at Adler and rushed to get pizza prior to our
training. Very soon Michael gathered all
the education volunteers and we were off to the classrooms to see the
experiments. There were 3 carts, two of
which were labeled “Sommelier Science”
and one called “Smelly Cat Space”.
My first task was to be a “Sommelier Science” and Michael wanted us to ham it up by saying
things that a real sommelier would. Yeah,
that was probably not going to happen. My
cart had one main experiment, which was test tube in a beaker of oil. The idea was to fill the test tube with oil
and drop in a full beaker. The
Refractive Index of glass and vegetable oil is same and so the tube appears
invisible. Initially the experiment
called for us to place an entire tube in there, then in front of the guests break
another tube and then extract the entire tube out. Michael said there would be no breaking and
that was a relief! I also had a pint
glass and the challenge was to ask the guests if the height was more than the
circumference. Once they answered, we
would measure and it would show that the circumference was almost double,
proving that not everything is as it appears…as with most things in life.
The biggest problem I was facing was that the cart had just
2 wheels at the front and so I had to lift the handles up in order to
push. That is not the most convenient
way of doing things when you have a lot of glassware on top. I went upstairs and stood next to some
musicians in ‘Our Solar System’
section. First up were 6 guests and I
started my routine by asking them about the height vs. the circumference of the
pint glass. That got them interested and
then I moved to the invisibility experiment.
They were amazed at this and I then asked them questions around
the principles before explaining the concept of refractive index. After they left, a woman told me that the
people who were just there were from a ‘Language
Learning Institute’ and my explanation would help them with their language
development skills. I said that this was
the beauty of science and math. That
language is universal.
Other people started coming to my station and now I had
taken to asking them if they liked ‘Star
Trek’ and especially ‘Klingons’. Then I would ask what the one thing was that
they had and ‘Federation’ did not – “the cloaking technology” -though some
said it was their wine. I said that all
they needed was some oil and they could have pulled it off! For those who did not like ‘Star Trek’, I would bring up ‘Harry Potter’ and his “invisibility cloak”. Besides these examples, I would also
correlate the “light bending” to the
principle of eyeglasses. But the best
part was when a girl came and asked if she could “slather” herself in oil and become invisible. Well, as soon as I had stopped fantasizing I
muttered, “Make sure you are behind
glass”.
My next shift was “Smelly
Space” and it was on a cart nearby.
There were squeeze bottles with “fragrances”
of deep space, including Moon, Jupiter, Titan and Sagittarius star
cluster. The idea was to tell people
that I would be letting them experience space through at least one of their senses; and then letting them smell by squeezing the bottles. One had a foul smell of gasoline – Titan;
while one had smell of strawberries and rum – Sagittarius. People would smell and wonder how we
knew. I would tell them about the
principle of volatile compounds and how we recreated those chemicals through
soaking a sponge in them. But the main
question still remained on how we knew about the smells. People
said that it was through sending probes. I
said that while that was true for Moon and Titan, we have never even gotten
close to a star cluster like Sagittarius. Then I would give them a tube with a spectroscopic grating at one end and ask them to look at any
light bulb. They would see a spectrum on
the side with some colors brighter than the others. I would say if they had a
reference chart, they could identify if the light source was halogen, tungsten
or sodium. I said that we do a similar thing
with stars and identify their spectral characteristics, thus creating the
aromas. People loved it and one girl
whose sun sign was Sagittarius was excited that her aroma was fruity and that of rum!
At 8 pm Michael send me to my next station in a classroom,
where they were doing a demonstration called “Frosty Fingers”. There were
a lot of people assembled and a “Mission
Specialist” was using Liquid Nitrogen to do various party tricks, including
making frozen ‘Gummy Bears’, and of
course ice cream. The audience was
lapping it up as she poured liquid nitrogen over the candy and they froze
instantaneously. She then proceeded to
crack them with a hammer, and with some flair too.
Then it was time to distribute them and since I was the helper, I went
around with a tray of frozen “gummy bears”
for everyone. People love these and some
were even particular about their flavors.
After that it was time for ice cream and so she mixed liquid ice cream into
a container and then added liquid nitrogen while stirring, thus forming instant
ice cream. Then she did the same with
whipped cream. Now it was time to serve and
while people formed a line for the ice cream, I went around with a tray to hand
out the frozen whipped cream. After that
the group left and we cleaned up before the next round. As the crowd gathered, we started by telling them to imagine
that we had people coming over for a party and all we had to cook was liquid
nitrogen. The facilitator then showed them some liquid nitrogen tricks like
creating smoke, a geyser with copper tubing and then we recreated the frozen “gummy bears”, and this time a volunteer
from the crowd handed them out. We also
asked if anyone wanted a banana, and proceeded to make a frozen banana. One lady near me said, “That’s how I like it, rock hard”.
Well, this is an over 21 event after all.
It was almost 9 pm and my final activity was once again “Sommelier Science”. I went over to the cart and wasn’t impressed
with some of the other experiments that were available on it. So I borrowed the
Refractive Index kit and set it up. Once
again people came and I would try to tell them that I could make things
disappear and yada yada yada. One lady
came and gave me a hard time as she refused to accept that that she couldn't
see the tube. I told her companion to
not take this lady to a magic show, since she would probably find fault in all of the tricks! I
got other visitors who enjoyed this and one girl asked if she could become
invisible. I told her what the other woman
had said earlier about “slathering
herself in oil”. It went well for
the next hour as I discussed concepts of refractive index with people and also
included things like why we see each other and how an object between us could
block the light, and thus the line of sight.
At 10 pm I took the cart to the back and dropped it off. It had
been another wonderful evening, and I had enjoyed the demonstrations. Today it truly felt like I was doing real scientific
demonstration. Plus a girl had said she
wanted to cover herself in oil. Can’t
ask for more from a shift.
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