LEVITATING PUMPKINS!
“And the cursed pumpkin rose up from the earth, carried to the sky by the spirits of All Hallows’ Eve.” Or in other words, Andy put a superconductor in a pumpkin and levitated it on a magnetic track.
I know, Halloween is done. But Ri Science did some pretty amazing things with pumpkins that I thought you needed to see. If the levitation wasn’t enough, here’s some more:
Exploring Pumpkins and Thermite
In the top pumpkin, the reaction between iron oxide (rust) and aluminium powder, set off by a strip of magnesium to provide enough heat, produces iron and aluminium oxide.
The reaction is incredibly exothermic, occurring at about 2000 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the iron melts and is spewed out in a rain of fire, and flows out as a river of molten metal into the poor head below. This is more than enough to set off the gun cotton in the second pumpkin, which bursts into a healthy fireball.
Guncotton in a Pumpkin…
and the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide catalysed by potassium iodide.
SCIENCE!
HALLOWEEN SCIENCE
SPOOPY SCIENCE!
