Question: In your profile it says 'i just love working in the lab! I’m a really practical person' well what would you say are your 3 favorite experiments, why and what was the conclusion (if any)?????

Sarah Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2011:

I like making lists so this question really appeals to me!

Here is a list of my top 3 favourite experiments just for fun:

1) Chucking potassium in a bowl of water! My chemistry teacher used to do that when he got bored of teaching us and one day he managed to break a sink! He was a hero! So funny…

2) Freezing stuff with liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen boils at -196 degrees – it’s incredibly cold, which means on quiet days in the lab you can freeze random stuff to see what happens! My top 5 favourite things to freeze are 1) balloons, 2) bananas, 3) onions, 4) rubber gloves, 5) cream (to make ice cream)

3) Anything involving dry ice! Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide and when it warms up it goes from solid straight to gas. You can accelerate this process by adding it to a flask of warm water and it will bubble volcanically and white gases comes off. This how they do special effects on stage and on films. Eery white smoke that rolls across the floor. It’s cool!

There are no serious conclusions to these experiments they are just for fun!

There’s a video on my profile under the “what I’d do with the money” section where you can see a demo of one of the experience I do with students in my cancer workshop it’s pretty cool too!