Books by New Scientist include

Does Anything Eat Wasps?

Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?

Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?

How to Make a Tornado

Why Can’t Elephants Jump?

Farmer Buckley’s Exploding Trousers

Why Are Orangutans Orange?

Will We Ever Speak Dolphin?

Nothing

Question Everything

Chance

How Long is Now?

How to Fossilise
Your Hamster

and other amazing experiments
for the armchair scientist

Mick O’Hare

www.johnmurray.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Profile Books Ltd.

Reissued in 2016 by John Murray (Publishers)

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © New Scientist 2007

The moral right of the Authors of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 473 65127 2

John Murray (Publishers)

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.johnmurray.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

1 In the Living Room

Cream on

Over the top

White water drinking

You only drink twice

Drinker’s legs

Yo ho ho

Beer orders

Ouch!

Shocking TV

Flower power

Shedding light

2 In the Kitchen

Fizz fallacy

Pasta puzzle

Banana armour

Iron man

Saucy stuff

Bouncing rice

Tuneful cuppa

Green eggs and cabbage

Burnt offerings

Silver lining

Strings attached

In the dumps

Teething trouble

Floaters

Apple fool

Shape shifting

Aim and pour

Stirring stuff

Plastic milk

Sink or swim

Citric secret

Bubble nuts

Hot chocolate

3 In the Study

Finger training

See better

Colour change

Sealed in light

Elastic fantastic

Rubber horror

Rip off

Immobile mobiles

Air space

Sucking eggs?

Cloud burst

Spark of genius

Oil lamp

Seeing double

4 In the Bathroom

The stuff of life

Testing the waters

Aromatic pee

Wine into water

A long meal

Wayward water

Spectral images

Brush mush

5 In the Garage

Hot stuff

Freezer teaser

Cubed route

Cleaning up

Sticky solution

Sticking doors

6 In the Garden . . . and Further Afield

Fossil record

Goggle-eyed

Head trauma

Complete collapse

Mixing madness

Tea-souper

Repulsive vegetables

Sound bites

Ba(n)g

Fizzy flight

Blow out

Up and down

The bumble balloon

Up in the air

Castles of sand

Nozzle puzzle

Overreaction

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Experiments are what make science tick. Observing, recording and observing again have taught us everything we know about our universe and the world around us. Without experimental evidence, science is reduced to little more than a set of theories. Real scientists – from Newton and the apple to Pavlov and his dogs – get out there and observe or, in the case of readers of New Scientist magazine, they go into the kitchen or garden and prove just why and how things happen. And when scientists have observed and recorded what they have seen, they repeat the experiment to ensure its results are verifiable.

Which is what this book is all about – experimenting and seeing for yourself. It’s where the real pleasure in science lies. Science isn’t boffins in labs, it’s people experimenting wherever they are and using whatever is to hand. By reading this book you’ll understand how great science has been achieved through experimentation.

In true New Scientist fashion, we focus on the trivial. You can find out why shaken and stirred martinis taste different, but not why the universe is expanding. You’ll learn how to extract iron from your breakfast cereal, but you won’t discover what’s inside a black hole. The big stuff can come later, after you’ve been inspired by the experiments here. Best of all, you’ll be able to ensure that your dear departed hamster is preserved for eternity (though you won’t be able to discover just how long eternity is).

While not every entry can be termed an experiment, they all allow you to try out simple things at home that demonstrate science in action. These range from the chemical (why do cola and Mentos make such an explosive mix?) to the biological (why do some things pass straight through the digestive system apparently untouched?). And we’ve unearthed a preponderance of experiments featuring alcoholic drinks – New Scientist is staffed by journalists after all. While these ones are for adults only, the rest are aimed at the entire family. Children should be supervised when carrying out any of the experiments we describe. For although they have been chosen with safety in mind, a few involve potentially hazardous materials (hot water, matches, knives…), so care needs to be taken.

Some of the experiments will almost certainly need a large outdoor space to try out, but you should be able to attempt most of them as soon as you get this book home or shortly after a trip to the local shops. Hardly any require specialist equipment.

The best science is always collaborative, so I am grateful to all the readers of New Scientist, colleagues, scientists and smart people everywhere who have helped make this book possible – a roll call appears.

Finally, remember: scientists’ theories are there to be challenged. If you carry out the experiments in this book and draw different conclusions, let us know – you will find our contact details in the Acknowledgements. Science is constantly evolving in response to new evidence; that is what makes it so wonderful and enlightening. There’s nothing we’d enjoy more than being proved wrong by someone who has carried out an experiment from this book and arrived at a different conclusion. After all, real scientists always experiment, not once, not twice, but again and again …

Mick O’Hare