• Question: What was your best experiment you have ever done in your life

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      Asked by Katie to Jade, Andrew, Jessica, Kevin, Lynn on 15 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Miss Bartlett, Chip, gunner fmk, NinaJean234, lolalola11, #Crazy999, Kerysina, Elsie, phoebe, kailem, Bubbles195, Da Predator43, orangetiger9, alicenugget.
      • Photo: Jade Owen

        Jade Owen answered on 15 Jun 2015:

        One experiment I did was to test for molecules called aldehydes. You would add Tollens solution (a mixture of silver nitrate and ammonia) to a test tube with aldehydes in (e.g. some glucose). If done correctly the tollens solution would form a mirror inside the test tube! Me and my friends were a bit competitive and always tried to get the best mirror!

        But not all experiments have to be in the lab! At a shop one day I ordered a Hawaiian pizza (Ham and pineapple) – but they had no ham! So I said to use pepperoni instead. It was amazing! Pepperoni and pineapple is now my favourite pizza.

      • Photo: Jess Wade

        Jess Wade answered on 16 Jun 2015:

        Hello 932curc38!

        I do great experiments every day! At the moment I am heating up some really cool new materials, that no one has ever studied before, and looking at what happens to their bonds when they get hot. I heat them up to 350 C ! Way hotter than our ovens. Sometimes we use liquid nitrogen to cool them down. We can get to -196 C, which is super cold.

        My favourite experiment since starting my PhD happened by accident- me and my best friend Seb were looking around an old scientists drawer and found 3 milligrams of powder he had thought was boring and hidden away. 3 milligrams is REALLY small- 0.003 g. When we bake a cake we use around 500 g! We made some cool solar panels out of this powder and found that with 5 different lasers we could look at different parts of the powder’s molecules. With blue light we could make some bonds glow, others with green and others with red light. Then we really careful made the molecules arrange in the perfect way to carry electricity- so we made the BEST SOLAR PANEL! We wrote about it for a science newspaper, and lots of people around the world were interested.

        Jade’s pizza story is good though- I love making experiments in the kitchen! Me and my dad always compete to see who can cut celery and carrots smallest for bolognese. Once we were around two hours into the preparation, had got all the meat ready, then we added some fish stock we thought was beef! Nightmare! It was horrible, but we had a good laugh and started again. That would be an example of a terrible experiment in the kitchen !!

      • Photo: Andrew Fensham-Smith

        Andrew Fensham-Smith answered on 16 Jun 2015:

        My favourite experiment was working with Mercury! Mercury is really interesting because it’s the only metal which is a liquid at room temperature. As a metal, it’s quite safe, and you can play with it, but if you react it with strong acids and start making other mercury compounds then it becomes really really dangerous! For example, if you make Mercury Chloride, it can really harm your insides and something like dimethyl mercury will kill you! But metallic mercury is pretty safe in comparison!

    Comments

    • Photo: Jessica

      Jessica commented on :

      My favourite experiment was when me and my best friend Seb found 3 milligrams of a material in our old friend’s drawer. 3 milligrams is tiny- 0.003 g. When we cook at home we use around 500 g of flour for a cake! He had thought it was boring, but we dissolved it and made a conducting ink. It was basically the most awesome material in the world! It had a really nice arrangement of electrons, so when we shined our different lasers on it we could see all the different parts of the molecule light up. Then we made a few solar panels and they were great! We wrote the whole story up in a science newspaper and lots of people were interested in the work.

      A cooking example like Jade’s was making spaghetti bolognese- me and my dad have competitions to see who can cut the celery and carrots the smallest. Once we spent about two hours preparing all of the ingredients and browning the meat, then we added a cube of fish stock rather than beef stock! Nightmare! We had to throw the whole thing away! That wasn’t the best experiment 😉 but it was the funniest !