Smoke Magic Trick - Smoking Fingers

Would you like to try a simple smoke magic trick? It easy to make your fingers smoke when you rub them together and glow in the dark. All you need is a matchbox and a way to burn the striker portion. Theres also a video of the smoking fingers project, if youd like to see what to expect. Difficulty: Easy Time Required: about a minute Materials The key materials for this project are matches, a matchbox with striker, a metal surface, and a way to make the metal cold. Matchbox of safety matchesCold water faucet or chilled panScissorsLighter One easy way to get cold metal is to run cold water through a faucet. If the water out of your tap isnt particularly cold, another option is to refrigerate a metal pan or set it onto a dish of ice. Perform the Smoke Magic Trick Cut out the striker portion of a matchbox from a box of safety matches. Trim off any paper around the striker.Fold the striker in half, striker-sides facing each other.Set the folded striker on top of the running cold water faucet or a refrigerated metal pan.Use a lighter to set fire to the striker. Ignite both ends. Then run the lighter along the length of the folded striker. It wont burn to ash, which is fine.Discard the burned striker.You will see a brown residue that has been deposited along the top of the faucet or metal pan. Run your fingertip along the residue to pick it up.Slowly rub your finger and thumb together. If you do this in the dark, your fingers will have a greenish glow. Very, very cool. Tips for Success Wash your hands after doing this, and try to avoid breathing in the smoke. The trick probably involves white phosphorus, which can be absorbed through your skin and is toxic.If you dont have scissors, you can do this trick by tearing off the striker portion of the matchbox with your fingers. Its just easier to cut out the striker, if you can.You could use the matches in the matchbox, rather than a lighter, of course. How the Smoking Fingers Trick Works Are you interested in the science behind this smoke trick? Its commonly believed the smoke is vaporized white phosphorus. Heres how it works: Phosphorus is a chemical element that can take several forms, called allotropes. The type of phosphorus in the striker of match boxes is red phosphorus. When you burn the striker, the phosphorus is vaporized and condenses into a solid onto the cool metal surface. This is white phosphorus. The element has not changed identify, just the structural arrangement of the atoms. Rubbing your fingers together produces enough heat from friction to vaporize the phosphorus into what appears to be smoke. The smoke glows green in the dark. While you might assume this is phosphorescence (since youre using phosphorus, after all), its actually an example of chemiluminescence. Phosphorus reacts with oxygen from air to release energy in the form of light. The reason scientists know the red phosphorus from the striker vaporizes into white phosphorus is because of the green glow. Only white phosphorus glows in the dark! White phosphorus readily reacts with oxygen in air to form a flammable compound. Because of this, one of the earliest uses of the purified element was to make matches. Early friction matches have been around since Robert Boyle made them back in 1680, although they did not become popular until 1830. The early phosphorus-based matches were dangerous, containing enough phosphorus to poison a person. Modern matches are called safety matches because they dont use highly toxic chemicals. Smoke Trick Safety The smoking fingers trick used to be a popular school science demonstration. It is not performed much any more because of concerns about the risk from the phosphorus, but if you do the trick infrequently, the dose of phosphorus is small. While red phosphorus is the form of the element that is essential for human life, white phosphorus can cause chemical burns and have a negative effect on bones. You can lessen the exposure by wearing thin, disposable gloves and taking care not to breathe the vapor. Disclaimer: Please be advised that the content provided by our website is for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. Fireworks and the chemicals contained within them are dangerous and should always be handled with care and used with common sense. By using this website you acknowledge that ThoughtCo., its parent About, Inc. (a/k/a Dotdash), and IAC/InterActive Corp. shall have no liability for any damages, injuries, or other legal matters caused by your use of fireworks or the knowledge or application of the information on this website. The providers of this content specifically do not condone using fireworks for disruptive, unsafe, illegal, or destructive purposes. You are responsible for following all applicable laws before using or applying the information provided on this website.

The Improvisational Brain By Amanda Martinez - 1162 Words

Learning to create music or a speech spontaneously is not an easy task. Any professional musician will say that improvisation is not as easy as just making it up as one goes along. In fact, the musicians that make improvisation look simple are the ones who have put in countless hours of time and study to make it look effortless. The Improvisational Brain by Amanda Martinez tells about a neuroscientist that studied the science behind how the brain works in order to improvise. In order to be able to be a good improviser, one must learn to shut down the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and let the creativity and skill take over. What about those that have limited ability? Should they learn to improvise as well? One would argue that it is not important to learn to improvise, whether it be music or otherwise. However, improvising can give a person a sense of freedom from the ordinary. â€Å"This notion of trying to tell your own story, without the constraints of caring how well it’ s going as you’re saying it, was really pretty intriguing† (Martinez p. 7). Although many struggle being able to shut down the part of your brain that allows one to improvise, it is important to teach children and adults alike how to improvise because it teaches creativity, divergent thinking, and encourages better communication skills. Improvising is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as, â€Å"to make, invent, or arrange offhand.† A classical pianist, Robert Levin said of improvisation, â€Å" It’s an act of

Sensory Perception Free Essays

Our senses nourish our brain like food feeds our body, without their input our brains would be very hollow and lacking of knowledge (Kirby Goodpaster, 2007). For knowledge we heavily rely on what we perceive from our senses, as they provide first-hand experiences, giving us primary evidence on surroundings and situations. However human’s five senses touch, taste, sight, sound and smell also have their imitations, so therefore they each have weaknesses to the amount of accuracy of knowledge they can give. We will write a custom essay sample on Sensory Perception or any similar topic only for you Order Now Starting from the sense of sight, a popular expression is â€Å"seeing is believing† as we depend on this sense to confirm reality. However beliefs from sight vary from person to person as we perceive things differently. An example of this would be the fact there was a time when people believed the earth was flat, as that was how it appeared as people could see the distant horizon as a straight line, it was only when the few thought otherwise went forth to prove against this knowledge that they were able to open new vistas of reality through their vision. Hearing, another sense has also been important for the use of human survival as a way of hearing unusual sounds that may stand for danger and for communication through language. However, human hearing can be limited, as often scientists find the existence or presence of sounds we cannot hear through our own ears. A human hearing deteriorates through age, as sensitivity towards sounds of higher frequency is lost. However our hearing is sophisticated enough that we can organize the sounds we hear, grouping and segregating these factors so in one aspect we hear what we want to hear. Sounds can also be interpreted or misinterpreted by different people as they stimulate varied emotions. As we generally connect the sounds we hear back to our memory, meaning we can recognize a person with a distinguishable voice. The sense of smell is important and is often used subconsciously for instinctual reasons. As recently discovered the extent to which the smell of a partner can affect our attraction to them. Our perceptions and evaluations others are influenced by their smell, as unpleasant smells connect to our disgusts or negative opinion of another. However, the perception of what is a good or bad smell can be interpreted differently between people as it is attached to previous knowledge gained. Knowledge, justification and critical thinking are three factors that contribute to the accuracy of sensory data (Mohanan, 2000). Critical thinking is the mental process of reflecting upon something to assess its credibility, truth, significance, usefulness, value or goodness on the basis of information available to us and a mode of justification that we consider legitimate. Critical thinking, knowledge and justification support the accuracy of information that our senses feed our brain. What we call knowledge is a collection of propositions that we believe to be true. A knowledge claim becomes part of the knowledge for an individual when the claim is accepted as true. Justification involves providing reasons for accepting propositions that we regards as knowledge, that is, for considering them to be true. It also involved providing reasons for rejecting the propositions that we regard as non-knowledge, considering them to be false. In other words, justification involves the defense of what we regards as true, and the refutation of what we regard as false. Observations, generalizations and theories are strategies of justification when using the senses as a viable way of gaining knowledge. Psychologists have long debated if perception is in fact due to nature or nurture. Beginning from the view point of nature, Gibson’s bottom up/direct theory that all the information we need to perceive is provided by our visual environment e. g. nature, rather than having to use past knowledge or experience (Mace, 2005). Additionally, Gibson and Gibson later proposed their Differentiation Theory which explains how the innate system develops. They suggested when young, we lack the ability to differentiate between objects. However, as we get older we develop the ability to differentiate, for this to take place all the necessary information needed is found is our visual environment. Next, from the view point that perception is a processes of nurture comes from Gregory’s top down/indirect theory which suggest that often the perceptual sensory data we receive is ambiguous and impoverished so perception often relies on the construction of sensory data, stored knowledge and expectations (McLeod, 2007). Research would suggest that although some argue that perception is due to nature, while other argues for nurture, it may in fact be that the two factors are interdependent and rely on each other. After all, it would be most adaptive to be born with some ‘hard wired systems’ which can be pruned and then developed to suit our environment. The human senses have enough strength to enable us to survive and develop our knowledge of our surrounding world to a point a point which we feel comfortable. Each sense has its limitations as well as its capability to be influenced by our inherited preferences, memories or previous knowledge. The senses an also be influenced by certain human states as tiredness, drug/alcohol abuse, nutritional deficiencies are all detrimental to the sensitivity of senses causing us to perceive something mistakenly. Our senses tell us similar things: through our different experiences in life we absorb the facts in different ways. How to cite Sensory Perception, Papers