- The metal potassium burns with a lilac flame which cannot be put out with water.
- A big chunk of potassium actually explodes when in contact with water. In small quantities, little pieces of potassium will skate around on the surface of water, whilst burning with that characteristic lilac flame.
An inadvisable trick is to steal little pieces of potassium from the school chem lab, and to place these upon the school roof. Then wait until it rains.
- Scientists can now make a fly grow a leg out of its own face, by messing with its DNA.
Pretty disgusting, but also pretty cool.
- There is a liquid that can actually pour itself. It’s called polyethylene glycol. It’s made up of tiny, but very long chemical chains, which explains why polyethylene glycol can do this and water cannot.
Think of it as being similar to pouring coiled rope from a pitcher. You tip the pitcher and the end of the rope snakes out. Once enough rope has left the pitcher, the rest of the coiled rope snakes out too, without you having to tip the pitcher at all.
Similarly, you begin to tip the pitcher and the ends of the long chains of polyethylene glycol start to snake out. Soon enough the rest of the substance follows without you having to tilt the pitcher any further.
- You’ve heard of the Philosopher’s Stone, which can turn any metal into gold. Well, after centuries of trying, we can now actually do just that, simply by adding the right number of protons to the atoms of any substance.
Yep! It’s definitely not a scam! Bankers don’t want you to know about this!
Small text: The only reason why people aren’t all doing this is because it’s so expensive and difficult to do that you’ll end up losing money instead of gaining it. Whoops.
- You know how helium makes your voice get all high and squeaky? Well, there’s a gas which does the exact opposite of that, known as sulfur hexafluoride.
If you want to watch it in action, just go on Youtube. Alternatively, you could try it yourself (warning: don't actually try this) and start prank calling everyone on your phone contacts list, going like:
“No, I am your father….”
- Sulfur hexafluoride is also really cool because it’s a very dense gas.
This means that you can put a foil boat on top of it, and the boat will appear to float in thin air.
- You can create electricity with just a bar magnet and a copper coil. Just stick the bar magnet into the coil - this will create an electric current in the coil.
Want a greater voltage? Just increase the number of turns on the coil. Or stick the magnet in faster. Pretty neat, huh?
To this day, no one actually knows why this occurs. It is a phenomenon known as “electromagnetic induction”.*
- If you have two metal balls of equal mass, held at the same height, and you throw one ball but just drop the other, the two balls will hit the ground at the same time.
This is because horizontal and vertical motion are actually independent of each other. That means that there is no relationship between the two.
And finally, to dispel a common misconception:
- If you are in an elevator which is falling from a great height, jumping before you hit the ground won’t save you. It could squash you flat, though.
On the bright side, assuming the conditions are just right, you could float like an astronaut whilst in the elevator. So at least you’ll see something interesting before you die.
Speaking of elevators, there’s another really cool phenomenon in elevator physics:
Next time you take a trip on an elevator, take a weighing scale in with you (try to ignore the weird stares from your fellow passengers). Now stand on the scale and wait for the elevator to go down. If you’re watching the scale, you’ll notice that your weight will momentarily decrease.
Yep, it’s not a scam. Gym owners don’t want you to know about this!
Small text: This actually has to do with the changing magnitude of the forces acting upon you thanks to gravity. This unfortunately doesn’t mean that you’ve lost a bit of fat.
Shame.
Edit: Some commenters have pointed out that inhaling sulfur hexafluoride is actually quite dangerous, as it can suffocate you. Therefore, I should add that you should not try these at home, although testing electromagnetic induction and the ball drop experiment are quite safe.
It is not recommended that you:
- Experiment with potassium without proper supervision or relevant experience
- Try and create the next Frankenfly
- Make gold in your backyard
- Do anything reckless with a gas you don’t normally come into contact with in your daily life
- Put an elevator into freefall just to see what happens. Especially not with you (or a stranger, or your friend, or your goldfish, etc.) inside the elevator.
*: So some more commentors have informed me that we DO know how electromagnetic induction works, contrary to what I was told in class.
(I should add that this is not to say that my physics teacher is a bad teacher. In fact, he’s an amazing teacher, which is why I feel I should say this. I actually took some of the material for this answer from him).
I’m not going to try and explain EM induction here, as I’ll probably be very wrong, which defeats the purpose of Quora as a learning/Q&A website. But if you want to find out more, you can check out the comments section below and try and find someone who might be able to explain to you.