The Spangler Effect - Dry Ice Science Part 02 Season 01 Episode 39

You know, Halloween's not just about the old people down the
street that give you the great candy because they want to
keep you off their lawn during the rest of the year.
No, it's about dry ice.
It's about things that glow in the dark.
It's about screaming things.
It's about ooey, gooey, slimy stuff.
It is a chance for you to be the hit of your next Halloween
party, and I'll show you how.
I'm Steve Spangler, and I'm all about making science fun.
For the last 20 years, I've been teaching ways to turn
ordinary science experiments into unforgettable learning
experiences.
I have an amazing team who will do whatever it takes to
affect the way people think about science.
And to do that, I live by one motto-- make it big, do it
right, give it class.

You guessed it.
We're back at the world famous Reinke Brothers.
Now, in Littleton, Colorado-- well, in
this part of the world--
this is the place that everybody goes.
It's the pilgrimage for anybody who loves Halloween.
It's the place where you can find any costume
in the entire world.
It's perfect for the mad scientist who wants to come up
with things.
And who doesn't need to have a real snake?
This guy is real.
And these spiders as well.
It's the Reinke Brothers.
Well, if you remember from last week, you've got to have
protective eyewear.
Gloves are a must, because this dry ice is 110 degrees
below zero Fahrenheit.
That's 78 and 1/2 degrees below zero Celsius, if you
play with that system.
You're going to need to have about 10 pounds for all the
activities.
You're going to lose about half of it in 24 hours, and
it's going to go down fairly quickly.
So throw it in a cooler, everything's fine.
You're also going to need to have a hammer because you're
going to break it up into some small pieces.
Just break it up into some small pieces.
This is exactly why you need that particular eyewear,
because you can find a little chip will come up and hit you
right in the eye.
Now, you remember that it's called dry ice for a reason.
That's because when it melts, we know it
doesn't actually melt.
It sublimes.
And the reason it sublimes is it goes from a solid into a
gas without going through the liquid phase.
It's actually frozen carbon dioxide.
So they take carbon dioxide gas, they freeze it, they, of
course, compress it, and you get dry ice.
So if you were to take this and put this on a plate, like
this, and you allow this to sit for, I don't know, 24
hours, when you come back, there's no water on
the plate at all.
It simply would be a dry plate because again, it turns from a
solid into a gas.

Apple juice is good, but apple juice with dry ice becomes
sparkling cider.
Well, it's not actually cider, it's just
sparkling apple juice.
But it's a good effect.
So a small piece of dry ice down inside an ordinary glass
of apple juice now carbonates that liquid.
So the carbon dioxide actually bubbles into the liquid, and
that bubbling effect produces this tingly sensation, so it
makes for a really cool beverage if you're trying to
do something for the party.
I wouldn't suggest just giving somebody a glass with the dry
ice in it-- do it in a huge cauldron and you get a much
better effect, and you can ladle it out once all the dry
ice is gone.
It makes it super, super cold and it tastes fantastic.
All right, let's do a little chemistry.
For that, you'll need your safety glasses.
I'm using a material called universal indicator.
This is an indicator that changes color if something is
an acid or a base-- you may remember from high school
chemistry class.
You could also use some red cabbage juice.
If you take the leaf of a red cabbage and you grind it up in
a blender, of course with water, and you strain it, you
can get some pretty good indicator.
But this universal indicator seems to be
a little bit easier.
A little in each of the graduated cylinders.

And to the indicator, we add a little bit of water.
So you get this neutral green-like color, and that's
what it looks like if it's not an acid or a base.
So this lime-ish green color just means that it's a pH of
about seven, or that of water.
This piece of carbon dioxide, dry ice,
it's actually an acid.
When you drop it inside here like this, it produces
carbonic acid.
The more acidic it gets, the lower the pH, the more red it
actually turns.
You get this beautiful color change.
So we go from seven, six, five, four, all the way until
it's red, and so it shows you that it's turned acidic
instead of basic.
A cool way to create a color change just using dry ice.
Let's start by making some bubble solution.
You're going to take a small little container-- you could
use a glass [INAUDIBLE]
plastic cup, some water--
and it's not technical at all--
just a squirt of the dish soap.
And that should be perfect.
You're going to need to have this big container here, or
something similar to that.
And you're going to need to have the creativity of a great
chemistry teacher in Missouri.
His name is Bob Becker.
Bob showed me how to do this many years ago.
Using a fairly small container--
I've just continued to try to find
containers that will work.
And here's the secret.
Take a look at this.
See this lip that's here?
This curved edge?
This is exactly what you want.
Because in a second, you're going to try to get the bubble
solution to just sit on that edge.
You're also going to need to have a piece of cloth.
You could cut an old t-shirt if you wanted to.
This is like an old shoestring or something like that.
This is going to go down into that container that had the
bubble solution and water, previously.
So we just soak the piece of cloth here in the bubble
solution, and that will be perfect.
We just want to be very careful not to get the bubble
solution accidentally in the water ahead of time.
Now we need to put the dry ice in here.
For this one, here, you're going to need to have a lot of
dry ice, so this will be perfect.
We want to create a good, flowing amount of this fog.
That seems to be perfect.
OK.
Here's the tricky part.
You're going to take the piece of cloth.
And you don't want it dripping wet, but you want it wet
enough that you now pull it across the top.
So watch as we pull across the top here like this, watch.
See, the object here to trap that expanding carbon dioxide
gas inside the bubble filaments on the very top.
If you do it just right, it'll just start to rise slowly, and
it almost looks like this crystal ball.
That's why we call it the crystal bubble.
And as you're talking to it, you can even see how it moves,
because just even the slightest amount of air from
your mouth causes it to move until finally it gets so
heavy, it will fall over and pop That's cool.
Now, don't get frustrated.
It doesn't always happen on the first try.
You need to pull across, and that's it.
Now the problem is this.
If you get any bubble solution down inside this container,
then you get the same thing as we had with the expanding
bubbles that came out of the graduated cylinder-- it's
everywhere.
You want to isolate just that little bubble there so that
you can control it.
Look at this.
There it is.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
So a lot of people want to try it?
Just use the small little cup, here.
So you stretch across like this, it traps the bubble
inside and you get the perfect little tiny crystal bubble
that's easy to be able to pick up and move around.
Just don't drink it.
Let's cause the bubble to light up from the inside.
You're just going to need to have a flashlight.
And down inside here, I have a little container, so this
waterproof flashlight can just sit down inside like this.
Now, trap the carbon dioxide gas with a
bubble across the top.
And this is super cool.
That light just shines up in here.
When the lights are completely off, it looks like this
glowing crystal ball.
If this doesn't make you the life of the party, I don't
know what will.

If you don't have a waterproof flashlight like this, you
could very easily use a glow stick, or you can get a huge
glowstick from the Halloween store.
I got it on aisle seven of the Reinke Brothers.
This is perfect.
This is a process called chemiluminescence.
It actually creates light mixing the two chemicals.
And these are perfect down inside any container because
it produces its own source of light-- you don't have to
worry about the electricity and it looks so cool.
If you've ever seen the glowing Mountain Dew on
YouTube, it's a hoax.
It doesn't actually work.
You've got to have a glowstick.
So if you want to increase the cool factor on anything that
I've shown you for Halloween using the dry ice, just find a
little atomic glow.
This is a special dye that when you add water and you're
around black light produces this very cool effect.

Well, all you need is a little bit of creativity, some dry
ice, some stuff around the house, and you are sure to
have a fantastic Halloween.
Now, get busy.
Oh, and by the way--
Mr. Electricity and Mrs. Water do not mix.
Higginsworth, could you get this out of here, please?

See, kids?
This is called mitosis.
It's where the cell actually divides.
Who am I kidding?
It's just a great big huge bubble on a table.