kinetic-molecular theory

In the January, 2018 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, Jeffrey Statler describes several experiments that can be conducted with liquid air.¹ He demonstrates that liquid air can be easily collected by simply immersing a test tube in liquid nitrogen, which has a

Chemical Mystery #11

In this Chemical Mystery, a metal sphere is heated until it glows orange-hot, and then it is placed in some water. Watch what happens next:

I recently watched a video in which a chemist (who goes by the nickname “NurdRage”) activated a chemiluminescent reaction by vapor deposition. You can see a short clip of this experiment below:

In Chemical Mystery #10, plastic straws are observed to “magically” change color when waved in the air. Check it out in the video below:

It's almost time for the Fouth of July here in the United States of America. In honor of my country, I'd like to share the following chemical mystery, which involves the colors red, white, and blue: just like the American flag! Check out the video below, and see if you can't solve the mystery of the colors appearing "out of the blue"!

A favorite experiment of mine is the bucket launch. My students and I recently tried two variations on this experiment. Watch the video below and see if you can explain the differences we observed.

Conducting experiments with liquid nitrogen experiments is a sure-fire way to energize many chemistry lessons. Unfortunately, getting access to liquid nitrogen can be a bit difficult. I happen to purchase liquid nitrogen from Airgas; you might be able to find a branch near you here.