Top 10 Amazing Chemical Reactions

[Neroon]

Link.

Granted, there are minds here who won't be impressed by this list, and many who will dispute the merits of what is included. Even so, I was transfixed by each of these demos! Not sure which is my favorite, because they're all incredibly amazing.

10. Sodium and Water in Chlorine Gas
09. Magnesium and Dry Ice Reaction
08. Potassium Chlorate and Candy Reaction
07. Meissner Effect
06. Sodium Acetate Super Saturation
05. Superabsorbent Polymer - video no longer available
04. Floating on Sulfur Hexafluoride
03. Superfluid Helium
02. Thermite and Liquid Nitrogen
01. Briggs-Rauscher Reaction

 

[Lumen]

And here I thought burning magnesium was cool.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Very interesting list but how is the Meissner Effect a chemical reaction? I always understood a chemical reaction as a process where chemical substances are converted.
C22H46 + Oxygen ->-> CarbonDioxide +H2O
Can you even write the "Meissner Effect" using a traditional chemical equation? For me the process is more a physical effect ie physics rather than chemistry.

 

[Neroon]

Very interesting list but how is the Meissner Effect a chemical reaction? I always understood a chemical reaction as a process where chemical substances are converted.
C22H46 + Oxygen ->-> CarbonDioxide +H2O
Can you even write the "Meissner Effect" using a traditional chemical equation? For me the process is more a physical effect ie physics rather than chemistry.

Good catch. My son & I were discussing that very thing as we viewed the collection earlier today. We figured it was cool enough that we'd let it slide.

One thing that puzzled me in the clip. If the effect is essentially the repulsion of the objects due to the supercooling, what effect is it that allows the person to pick up both objects simply by lifting the top one?

 

[Jadzia]

If it were simply repelling it would fall away like what happens when trying to balance a magnet on top of the field of another magnet. There's obviously some balancing point where repelling and attracting cancel and its held there. You can see the disc wobble up and down when touched as though it's finding an equilibrium like this.

I've heared people say the disc becomes like a magnetic mirror. Other describe it as a situation in which there is no magnetic flux leakage. I don't have a simple explanation for you because I don't understand it either, but its an amazing effect

 

[romulus]

I liked 4 Sulfur Hexafluoride mainly because I had not seen it before. It was pretty cool seeing that tin foil boat float on air then filled with air and watch it sink. The voice effects are pretty neat to.

 

[Gertch]

Those are cool. Some extremely. My girls liked watching those and started asking lots of questions. Nothing like a little experiment to get kids excited!

I used to use liquid nitrogen at Honeywell for various metal conditioning; thermocycling mainly, watching beads fly along the floor more often. Oh, and lets not forget a couple of drops to blow up rubber gloves.