25 Chemistry Experiments in 15 Minutes

Chemistry plays a fundamental role in our daily lives, from the plastic in the mouse you use every day, to the bottle of mineral water on your desk, not to mention the occasional aspirin, that very cheap pair of polyester socks, and the lithium battery in your smartphone. The problem is that we rarely pause to recognize this, or on the contrary, we expect too much from a chemical process and end up disappointed. Professor Andrew Z. Szydło recently gave a TED talk entirely dedicated to chemistry, with 25 experiments in 15 minutes on stage, and you can't afford to miss it.

One of the Best Chemistry Talks in 15 Minutes

As a child, he was fascinated by chemistry. Liquids changing color, strange fumes, fire! It was a festival of color, noise, the repugnant (read "fabulous" for a 12-year-old) smell of sulfur, and his mother shouting in the background that he was going to burn the house down. But high school killed that dream with a combination of bad teachers, limited access to materials, and laboratories frozen in winter. He thought it was something personal, but he has noticed that most people have a rather poor relationship with chemistry. Professor Andrew Z. Szydło admits that chemistry can be disappointing, and tells the story of Liu Hsiang, who apparently promised to "make gold" for the Chinese emperor in the year 59 BC, obtaining as a result a horrible smell. Szydło says Liu Hsiang was executed, although several sources suggest that his brother "paid a ransom" to convince the emperor to cancel the order...

But what brings us here is chemistry, not Chinese history. Szydło defines chemistry as "the science of substances, and their transformation into other substances". As he explains this, the professor begins to develop a series of relatively simple experiments. Water changing color, liquid nitrogen in action... and plastic bottles exploding in trash baskets due to the expansion process. He also talks about different states of energy, the changes in volume and pressure (for example, throwing liquid nitrogen into an inflated balloon), the extraordinary value of being able to reach low temperatures, and the liquefaction of gases.

As expected, Professor Szydło couldn't finish his presentation without blowing up a couple of things, and he used that process to demonstrate the influence of oxygen on combustion. For example, a balloon filled with hydrogen burns quite fast, but when mixed with oxygen, it is essentially a bomb. Now, while teachers are not obliged to become actors in a class, I think our contact with chemistry would be much stronger and broader with people like Professor Szydło at the helm.

(Editor's note: The TED talk only has automatic subtitles in English)