Easy tricks with water |
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Put the cork in the center
Fill a drinking glass with water so that it is almost full. Put a small cork
into the glass and ask your friends to make the cork stay in the center of the water;
it must not touch the sides of the glass. They will not be able to do this easy trick. The cork always
moves to one side.
When your friends have decided that it is impossible, you show them that it is easy to do this physical trick. Add more water to the glass from another glass until the water is a little over the rim. Be very careful. Because of the surface tension, the water will form a convex surface. The cork moves to the center, where the water is highest, and there it will stay. |
An automatic siphon
People have made many different automatic siphons, but this automatic siphon is
so simple that you can make it from a glass tube.
With the help of a candle you can bend the tube as shown in the picture. When your tube becomes cold again, you put it into a glass of water, as you see, and your siphon will begin to work at once. When point A on the tube goes down, the water (which always finds its own level) runs through the tube to point B. Thanks to its inertia, the water goes up and over point C and begins to siphon. You can also make such a siphon with the help of a plastic lemonade-straw. Water can run through such straws when you bend them. If one straw is not enough, you can put two or three of them together to make a long tube. |
The water is in the lower glass
For this physical trick you must take a wet handkerchief and put it
over two glasses, as shown in the picture. You must be sure that the handkerchief
touches the lowest part of the higher glass but only the top of the other glass.
At night before you go to bed, you fill the higher glass with water.
The next morning you find all the water in the lower glass!
The phenomenon of this physical trick is called capillary action. It made the water which was in the higher glass go through the handkerchief to the lower glass. |
A trick with ice
For this easy trick put an ice cube from your refrigerator into a glass of water. You have a piece of
string 10 centimeters long. The problem of trick is to fake out that piece of ice with the help
of the string. But you must not touch the ice with your fingers.
You may ask your friends to try to do that scientific trick at birthday party.
There is a salt-cellar on the table. You must use salt when you carry out this easy trick. First you put the string across the piece of ice, as shown in the picture. Then put some salt on the ice. Salt makes ice melt. The ice round the string will begin to melt. But when it melts, it will lose heat. The cold ice cube will make the salt water freeze again. After a minute or two you may raise the piece of string and with it you will raise your piece of ice! This easy trick can be very useful to you. If, for example, there is ice near the door of your house, you must use very much salt to melt all the ice. If you don't put enough salt, the water will freeze again. |
