Garage Science Blog

How fast is a sneeze?

This time of year coughs and sneezes are a common complaint, but just how fast is a sneeze.
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Dark Flames

It sounds like something out of a horror film, but this is a lovely experiment which makes a bright orange flame seem dark, and has lead to scientists finding out the composition of stars on the other side of the universe.
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Electricity from water - Kelvin water drop generator

This is a beautiful little demonstration dating back to to Lord Kelvin. Using a few cans wires and dripping water it is possible to generate thousands of volts in a beautifully elegant piece of physics.
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The Barking Dog Experiment

This is a classic chemistry experiment dating back to the 19th century with impressive, loud and sometimes explosive results.
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Phosphorus Moon

Dr Hal brought along another classic chemistry experiment, the phosphorus moon, with rather beautiful results.
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Exploding Eggs - Burning Hydrogen

Hydrogen is an extremely flammable gas, but what happens if you fill an egg with it, light the top and retire to a safe distance?
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Light Bulbs in Liquid Nitrogen

What would happen if you put a light bulb in a bucket of liquid nitrogen? And would it still work if it were just a filament?
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Dry Ice Experiments and Bombs

Dr Hal showed us some things to do with dry ice; including the highly dangerous dry ice bomb.
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Mysterious forces - Eddy Currents

Here is a lovely little experiment you can do if you can get hold of a small rare earth supermagnet. Using just a couple of tubes you can produce surprising forces.
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Why does a pigeon's head bob as it walks?

Pigeons and various other birds seem to bob their heads backwards and forwards in a bizarre manner, which seems to be a lot of hard work. I was watching some in front of my garage and dug out the high speed camera to see what is going on.
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Liquid Nitrogen Bomb

One thing you should never do to liquid nitrogen is to seal it in a pressure vessel.... so we had a go.
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The Gherkinator

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you passed mains electricity through a gherkin? It is an illuminating experience.
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A cornflour monster

This is a really strange effect only discovered about 6 years ago. Basically it involves shaking cornflour mixture very hard and it starts to grow tendrils, in a very 1950's B-movie way.
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Cello vibrations and how a violin bow works

For this week's kitchen science I took some high speed footage of some cello strings but there were some fascinating effects which didn't really fit into the kitchen science, so I thought I would post them here.
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Colour Flashes from light bulbs

Ever since I acquired my own high speed camera (after an unfortunate incident with a borrowed high speed camera and an exploding pumpkin) I have been pointing at things which may be interesting. Last week I tried light bulbs as they turned off with some quite colourful and fascinating results.
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