Chemistry of Christmas - with Katherine Haxton
We're celebrating Christmas the only way we know how - with Chemistry!
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This lecture was recorded at the Ri on 19 December 2023. This was one of our family events, particularly suitable for those aged 7+.
Join senior chemistry lecturer Dr Katherine Haxton to explore some of the amazing chemistry to be found in our festive celebrations. Exciting demonstrations and experiment explain what is really going on when it snows, what's inside your Christmas meal, and the chemistry hidden inside the humble Christmas cracker.
We will even see what Christmas could be like in the future, and how chemistry could revolutionise festive celebrations around the world. A very happy Christmas from all at the Ri!
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Dr Katherine Haxton is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Keele University, with specific research interests in Chemistry Education and Materials Chemistry. She teaches widely across Inorganic, Industrial, and Sustainable Chemistry.Katherine is particularly interested in opportunities to develop and design assessments that develop broader skills, and in the design and deployment of innovative chemistry courses at module and degree programme level.
She is part of a national group of science academics who run workshops on decolonising science, who have recently completed an Advance HE sharing good practice grant to create resources highlighting the need to decolonise science. Katherine was shortlisted for the 2020 Green Gowns award, Staff Sustainability Champion category for her work on our Sustainable Chemistry module and work within the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences to promote sustainability across all activities.
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The Chemistry of STUFF. I like that. I'm 67 now. I remember the first ever chemistry lesson when I was 11....Timothy blew bubbles through a clear liquid which went cloudy! Then over time we did experiments with Mr Meadows (Nuffield Science) outside stood at a distance as he created "fireworks" with stuff.....manganese?? And what was potassium permanganate - was that the purple stuff. I wasn't interested back then (including domestic science) but I wish I had been. 😊
I'm sad that I never got into chemistry until my 20s. I've always loved all things STEM, but chemistry escaped me, somehow. I actually wound up getting interested in it because I have bouts of synesthesia from time to time and happened to watch an organic chemistry lecture during one of these episodes, about 15 years ago. I was watching an introductory on alkanes, but each alkane was its own color. Not that the word looked that color, in my perception, the chemicals WERE the colors. For lack of a better description. You really need to experience it first hand. I remember ethane was bright yellow, banana or raincoat colored but with a hint of neon. Butane was a deep, navy blue. Pentane was a bright red, like fresh blood (I was just reading anatomy stuff lol). Those are the main ones I remember, but there was a whole rainbow from methane to decane. I spent the next few hours binging on lectures, even though I still had little knowledge of basic chemistry. But I could get by just fine. That kickstarted my interestbin chemistry in general, and I've since expanded my STEM knowledge to include that. As well as material science, which is like apploed physics had a baby with applied chemistry. Especially semiconductors and the chemistry involved in making integrated circuits.
Around the 43:00 mark, it's quite nice that she includes all the other kids that had their hands raised, even though she couldn't pick all of them.
I want to spare a moment to congratulate the person responsible for the intro banner. It's simple and amusingly well done. Using the elements and the Royal Institute logo like that is a very nice touch, especially when I remembered there was no element Ri. Although the inclusion of arsenic is quite funny to me. Very festive! A perfect way to... celebrate with family we're _so_ "pleased" to be forced to see once a year.
Yes, very cool!
The demonstration with LNX at the end - we got that by our chemistry teacher at school (1980s...). In the end, he just poured the liquid nitrogen on the ground, with the droplets skittering towards the audience... *very* impressive and very memorable :-)
In 5th grade I witnessed a science demonstration where at the end of everything, the guy threw the remaining liquid Nitrogen or Oxygen up into the air, where it evaporated before it could hit the ground.
Yes! Chemistry!
The silver baubles - to my knowledge, you can still buy them. They're somewhat expensive, but they're glass with a thin layer of silver inside. At least, last time I looked, here in Germany on Christmas markets...
There is a giant candle store in Massachusetts, US that sells the German glass ornaments. If I was young, I would start a collection to pass down through the generations. (Yankee Candle is the one)
Yes, they're just more expensive and fragile, so not many people buy them, and most stores only stock plastic ones these days.
@@RFC3514 The glass ones look better, though.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 01:48 🕯️ *Chemistry of Christmas Past: Candles were a significant part of early Christmas decorations. The wick melts the wax, which turns into a gas, and the hydrogen in the wax reacts with oxygen to form water and carbon dioxide, creating different zones of combustion in the flame.* 06:23 🌌 *Candle Flame in Space: In outer space, a candle flame becomes spherical due to the absence of gravity. The blue flame zone represents complete combustion, while the brown zone indicates incomplete combustion.* 08:01 ✨ *Silver in Christmas Decorations: Silver was historically used to make decorations like tinsel and Christmas baubles. Silver nitrate solutions were used to create a thin silver coating on various surfaces.* 15:39 💥 *Silver Fulminate in Crackers: Silver fulminate, a compound that can detonate easily, is used to create the "crack" in Christmas crackers when they are pulled apart.* 18:06 🔋 *Potato Battery Experiment: An experiment shows how potatoes can be used to power LED fairy lights, highlighting the importance of batteries and energy sources in modern Christmas decorations.* 25:35 🎄 *Tinsel used to be made of flammable aluminumized paper but is now flame resistant, showcasing the chemistry behind its safety improvements.* 26:33 ❄️ *Fake snow is made of a superabsorbent polymer, sodium polyacrylate, which expands when water is added, creating a snow-like substance.* 29:35 🌌 *Superabsorbent polymers, like sodium polyacrylate, are also used in space diapers for astronauts on long missions.* 32:53 🚀 *Chemistry plays a crucial role in space travel, including rocket fuels like liquid oxygen, and materials that need to withstand extreme temperatures.* 52:55 🌡️ *The chemistry of materials changes with temperature, as demonstrated with freezing and shattering objects using liquid nitrogen.* Made with HARPA AI
Great video, the audio has a square ave hun tho that shouls be easy to remove
Got to love her Lego skills 😉
Two men walk into a bar. The first one says “I’ll have a glass of H2O please”. The second one says “that sounds good, I’ll have a glass of H2O too”. He dies.
Demonstrations could be much more dramatic if done right but by and large it was quite fun.
The missing ingredient. I love it
😊
This is the only acceptable use for sprouts.
Cool
i wondered if glow sticks worked on solar panels? 🙇🤷♂️
Ooh Chemistry.
hi
Making Christmas attractive to the young???
Why not do it with nappies? The smell will be interesting, though... ;-)
If you start your potato battery on the 1st of December, will they be roasted for Christmas Day? There is no such thing as an innocent Brussels sprout!
If I wanted to watch a presentation with a gimmick made for children I would go to watch PBS
Look at the audience PHUCKWIT, it's kids along with their parents
😂😂😂 I see what you did there 😉😎
@@Phantom-mk4kpcalm down it's a joke 🤣 Phuckwit 😎
Twerky, people who watch PBS have WMV.
There's always one American in the comments embarrassing themselves and today it's twerktospec.
Just ATROCIOUS English! I can't go on. I want to support science but I just can't. I'm out.
You've got to speak in a way that makes your audience comfortable. You don't want to be pedantic and proper, it gives the impression that you are speaking down to your listeners. Is she talking like a college lecturer? No. But for an audience of mixed ages and backgrounds, I think she did just fine.
@@tncorgi92 : Quite! She's speaking to the general public so the vocabulary is fine. However, I am a bit confused at her statement at 27:11 "Now we wouldn't call that 'colourless', we'd have to specify it's white." Why would anyone call it 'colourless' when that substance is quite obviously white? 🤔Or does it only _appear to be white_ because there's a sufficiently large amount of it, and it would be colourless if you only saw a few isolated grains? 🧐
@@tncorgi92 - If speaking properly "gives the impression that you're speaking down to your listeners", then there's something deeply wrong with the language you're speaking. I didn't find her English particularly bad (let alone offensive), just a bit hesitant and fumbly at times, but your statement makes no sense.