The University of Illinois School of Chemical Sciences put on their annual Holiday Magic Show this afternoon; it seemed like the sort of thing Jake & Sam would enjoy, so off we went.
It was in the big lecture hall in Noyes Lab. Long ago – freshman year, 1980-1981 – I had Chemisty 100 / 101 lectures in that room. So it was a bit of nostalgia for me.
The hall has been remodeled since 1980. The new seats would have been quite comfortable, if my rear end were still as small as it was in 1980. Alas, it is not, and I was rather squeezed.
A woman at the door was handing out earplugs. “It gets loud,” she said.
The show itself was fascinating. I remember a few of the items:
- Breathe helium, sing like Alvin & the Chipmunks; breathe sulfur hexafluoride (which isn’t toxic, honest!), sing like Thurl Ravenscroft.
- Cheetos + liquid oxygen + spark = big fire.
- Various liquids that changed colors in interesting ways: orange & blue; red & green.
Later, they started playing with flammable vapors. Hydrogen gas makes a pretty big boom; but if you mix it with oxygen you get an even bigger boom.
Poor Sam, he enjoyed the quieter parts of the show, but when they started blowing thing up he asked to leave: “No! No more tricks! I want to get out of here!”
He was almost as loud as the explosions, so we left the show early and wandered around the building:
Near the main entrance to the lecture hall, there’s a plaque on the wall honoring Gilbert P. Haight, a member of the faculty – and the fellow who taught Chemistry 100, way back in 1980. I remember him as a great lecturer, with a whimsical sense of humor. Early in the semester, he invited the entire class to a picnic at his house; I didn’t go.
I was antisocial even then.
