00:00:00 Here is the recording.

00:00:30 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the President of the University of Wisconsin System,

00:00:41 Robert O'Neill.

00:00:59 Thank you very much.

00:01:00 Somebody told me this was a chemistry class.

00:01:03 Looking around here, you'd never know it, but I'm glad somebody put the coffee on.

00:01:09 Where's the cream and sugar?

00:01:11 I have a confession to make.

00:01:14 I am not a chemistry professor.

00:01:17 As a matter of fact, I never even took a chemistry course.

00:01:27 And I've been enjoying it ever since.

00:01:30 As a matter of fact, I gave up chemistry when I blew up the garage with my chemistry set

00:01:36 at the age of nine, which is just about the same age that my son Peter, who's here with

00:01:43 me this evening, got a chemistry set.

00:01:45 And he's threatened to do exactly the same thing, to follow in the family footsteps.

00:01:50 We are here this evening because this is a chemistry class, and it's a very special chemistry

00:01:56 class.

00:01:58 And it's taught by somebody who has a very special interest in and feeling for the teaching

00:02:04 of his subject.

00:02:06 Professor Shakashiri, as I think most of you know here, has not only been an extraordinary

00:02:12 teacher of chemistry, as well as an outstanding chemist, but he chaired for two years the

00:02:19 Undergraduate Teaching Improvement Council for the whole UW system.

00:02:24 And in that way and others, he's helped many of the rest of us to understand some very

00:02:30 important things about what teaching means and how we can be better teachers.

00:02:36 And here we are this evening, all of us in one way or another, his students.

00:02:41 And so it is my happy duty at this point to present to you Professor Shakashiri, who will

00:02:48 now tell us what all these marvelous things are.

00:02:51 Thank you.

00:03:18 Thank you very much, President O'Neill.

00:03:20 It's a pleasure to have you with us.

00:03:22 It's a special pleasure to have all of you join us today in this very special lecture.

00:03:28 I welcome all the students in my class and all other classes, and all the guests from

00:03:33 the city of Madison and from outside of Madison as well.

00:03:37 You know chemistry is a fascinating science.

00:03:40 It's actually a most fascinating science.

00:03:43 Not only do we see vivid colors and sense other changes as we watch the appearance change

00:03:52 and as we watch the different chemical properties change, but many of the chemical reactions

00:03:57 that we will look at are dazzling.

00:04:00 We find them intriguing because they arouse our curiosity and because they make us think

00:04:07 about possible explanations.

00:04:10 Science and chemistry can be a lot of fun, as most of my students know.

00:04:15 And that's what I hope we will have today.

00:04:18 I ask you to sit back and relax and enjoy the festivities.

00:04:28 As we handle chemicals, we have to be very careful in observing safety regulations.

00:04:34 We have to be fully understanding of the potential hazards of the chemicals so as

00:04:40 not to injure ourselves, injure other people, or injure the environment that we live in.

00:04:46 Someone once said that when a phenomenon occurs and everyone understands what happened, we

00:04:53 call that science.

00:04:56 On the other hand, when a phenomenon occurs and very few people understand what happened,

00:05:02 we call that magic.

00:05:04 And finally, when a phenomenon occurs and no one understands what happened, we call

00:05:09 that a miracle.

00:05:13 Today we're going to do a lot of science, a few chemical magic tricks, and perhaps a

00:05:18 miracle or two.

00:05:23 To begin with, I want you to know that safety regulations, as I have mentioned already,

00:05:27 are very important.

00:05:28 I have my eye protection here.

00:05:30 And I also have a fire extinguisher, which is ready to be used in case it is needed.

00:05:37 And we have people who are qualified to use it.

00:05:40 I hope we will not need to use it at all.

00:05:43 Now, to begin with, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about and showing you

00:05:50 different properties of gaseous materials.

00:05:54 We have quite a few gases in these balloons that are hanging.

00:06:03 One of them just went up to the ceiling.

00:06:06 Clearly these balloons are hanging on these strings.

00:06:09 If the string is not here, then the balloon will go up to the ceiling.

00:06:14 And clearly these balloons have gases that are lighter than air.

00:06:18 So let's look at some of the properties of these gases.

00:06:22 And I'll get a magic wand here.

00:06:36 And we'll see what happens to this balloon.

00:06:40 You ready?

00:06:48 I see that balloon popped and exploded.

00:06:52 That balloon had in it a gas lighter than air.

00:06:54 Actually, the gas is helium.

00:06:56 What I want to show you next, and we want to find out together next what happens as

00:07:00 we mix gaseous hydrogen with gaseous oxygen.

00:07:05 And to do this, I'm going to call on two of my associates, Fred Juergens and Vince

00:07:11 Jenna to come out and help.

00:07:32 Now what we're going to be doing is working with some soap bubbles.

00:07:37 And the soap bubbles contain this mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

00:07:41 I'll try to catch the soap bubbles as they come up and see what happens.

00:07:51 Now that's hydrogen that's exploding.

00:07:54 And as we increase the concentration of oxygen, we get...

00:07:59 My aim isn't very good here, but...

00:08:05 A little more oxygen, a little more oxygen.

00:08:09 That's the hydrogen that's exploding.

00:08:11 It's just a soft explosion.

00:08:15 We're making a mess on the lecture table.

00:08:20 They're making a mess.

00:08:21 I'm not making a mess.

00:08:22 There we go.

00:08:23 All right.

00:08:24 All right.

00:08:25 Thank you.

00:08:26 Thank you.

00:08:27 Thank you.

00:08:28 Now you see, as we increase the amount of oxygen in the mixture, the loudness of the

00:08:33 explosion, the chemical reaction that takes place, takes place so fast that it is an explosion,

00:08:38 as I will try to show you here.

00:08:40 Well that was another hydrogen bomb.

00:08:42 So we'll shut this off, I think, and we'll see what else we can do as we move on with

00:08:51 looking at the properties of other properties of gases.

00:08:56 This balloon here, well let's see what happens to this balloon.

00:09:02 As I told you, this balloon has helium in it, and what I have at this end is a big trough

00:09:14 which contains nothing right now.

00:09:18 I'm going to take a very cold liquid, liquid nitrogen, which has a boiling point of minus

00:09:24 196 degrees Celsius, and pour it on the balloon and see what happens as this cold liquid hits

00:09:30 the balloon.

00:09:33 And you see that the balloon collapses as long as it is in contact with the liquid nitrogen.

00:09:42 And when it warms up again, it tries to go up, up, up.

00:09:49 And because it's on the string, you see, it doesn't go very far.

00:09:51 So let's see if we can do this again.

00:09:54 You like that, huh?

00:09:59 We're using a lot of this liquid nitrogen.

00:10:01 It's going all over the place.

00:10:03 Let me see if I can cut this here and see what happens.

00:10:14 There goes the balloon, and it goes all the way up, showing us that, again, as I said

00:10:21 before, it's lighter than air.

00:10:22 Now there are other properties of helium that I'd like to show you.

00:10:27 One specifically has to do with the effect on...

00:10:30 I've got to be a little careful about what we're doing here.

00:10:39 Because if we're not careful, a lot of bad things can happen to us.

00:10:53 What I have now here is simply a source of helium, and I'll try to inhale this and see

00:10:57 what happens.

00:10:58 My name is Bassam Al-Khashuri.

00:10:59 And you see, you have to be somewhat careful in doing this, because although it sounds

00:11:21 funny like Donald Duck and other caricatures, one has got to be very careful about doing

00:11:26 this, because you don't want to inhale the helium and cut off the supply of oxygen, because

00:11:32 we all know what happens if we do that.

00:11:36 I want to do a few other things with you and for you with liquid nitrogen, but I used up

00:11:42 a lot of the liquid nitrogen that I have here, and so I wonder if one of the Wisconsin students

00:11:46 would help me replenish the supply of liquid nitrogen.

00:11:50 Is there someone that can help me do the...get me some liquid nitrogen?

00:11:53 Oh, well, there's somebody.

00:11:54 Oh, well.

00:11:55 Thank you.

00:11:56 Thank you very much.

00:11:57 Thank you very much, Bucky.

00:11:58 Bucky Badger is our mascot, and I assume this is liquid nitrogen that you got here, right?

00:12:08 And I know that you have been quite active.

00:12:11 I know you've been quite active on the athletic field, also in the ice arena and the basketball

00:12:16 court.

00:12:17 I know that Wisconsin is going to be doing very...

00:12:19 Oh, wow.

00:12:22 You have other activities that you're engaged in.

00:12:25 Well, I can tell that we don't want to go into that, but let me ask you, do you actually

00:12:32 Badger the cheerleaders?

00:12:34 You actually do.

00:12:36 Bucky, I know that final exams are coming up and you have to go study for that, but

00:12:46 I wonder if you have enough time to stay.

00:12:48 You're not going to study for this?

00:12:49 Not tonight, all right?

00:12:50 Are you going to stay here and watch the rest of the program?

00:12:52 Well, why don't you just join us in the front there, Bucky, and watch the rest of the festivities

00:12:59 here, okay?

00:13:02 I would have asked you, Bucky, to help me show some of these experiments.

00:13:12 But I noticed that you don't have your safety glasses with you, and that's why I asked you

00:13:28 to sit there and watch what we're going to be doing, okay?

00:13:33 Now, the supply of nitrogen here, I think, I hope it's a very good supply, because I'm

00:13:39 going to need quite a bit of this in doing quite a few things.

00:13:44 We fill this up.

00:13:45 See, it's a liquid, as I said, a very cold liquid.

00:13:48 And I'm going to take another container here, a very special container that, in science,

00:13:59 we call it the Dewar flask.

00:14:00 It's nothing but a thermos bottle, actually.

00:14:03 We'll pour whatever is left in here.

00:14:05 Not very good aim again.

00:14:08 This stuff...

00:14:09 I've got to be careful where this stuff goes.

00:14:18 All right, we'll take some of this, and now what we're going to do is use almost everyone's

00:14:28 favorite compound, which is ethyl alcohol.

00:14:31 We're going to take a little bit of ethyl alcohol into this test tube and simply submerge

00:14:43 the test tube in the liquid nitrogen bath and let that cook for a while or cool for

00:14:50 a while and see what happens.

00:14:52 So I'll just set this aside now and try to show you something else involving liquid nitrogen.

00:15:01 What I have here is some small pieces of rubber.

00:15:05 You can see that they are rubbery materials because they can flex quite easily.

00:15:11 I'm going to take these pieces of rubber into this beaker and then take some liquid nitrogen

00:15:20 and add it to the rubber and see what happens.

00:15:24 You see, as the liquid boils, it looks as if water is boiling, except that the temperature

00:15:29 is quite low.

00:15:30 As I said, it's minus 196 degrees, and it is quite cold.

00:15:36 So that's why I have to wear these gloves to try to protect my hand from frostbite.

00:15:41 And what I have been preparing ahead of time here is a hammer.

00:15:48 And this hammer is made out of mercury, the element mercury.

00:15:53 Now not many of you have seen solid mercury before.

00:15:55 This is quite hard, you see.

00:15:58 And I keep it in this cold bath, again, to make sure it stays solid.

00:16:02 Now what I'm going to try to do, see, dump this stuff out here, and I'm going to try

00:16:09 to take this piece of rubber, use the mercury hammer, and drive these spikes in.

00:16:24 That stuff is cold, let me tell you.

00:16:29 Now you do remember, let's see if I can still catch this one.

00:16:32 What we have here is some rubber nails.

00:16:37 And if I keep this out of the cold bath, it will, of course, come to room temperature

00:16:42 and it will melt.

00:16:43 And that's one thing I'd like to show you.

00:16:44 So I'm going to take it and put it in this empty container, and we'll see what happens

00:16:53 as it warms up to room temperature.

00:16:57 We'll come back to it and take a good look at what is happening.

00:17:02 Now something else that I'd like to do with the, let's take a look

00:17:07 at these rubber nails here, see what has happened to them.

00:17:13 See, they come out quite easily now.

00:17:14 Well, except this one doesn't come out.

00:17:17 They're still hard, but some parts of them

00:17:21 are softer than they were when they were solid.

00:17:25 Now the effect, you see, the effect I want to show you now,

00:17:31 a different kind of effect on rubber.

00:17:35 I have to take the gloves off now.

00:17:36 I don't think I need the gloves anymore.

00:17:38 What I have here is a rubber ball.

00:17:41 As you can see, it bounces quite nicely.

00:17:44 You check it out.

00:17:45 Is it rubber, right?

00:17:46 Throw it back to me, OK?

00:17:49 Got it.

00:17:50 On this side, you can verify it's rubber.

00:17:52 Is it?

00:17:53 OK, all right.

00:17:54 All the way in the back?

00:17:57 You know what will happen to it if I throw it all the way in the back?

00:18:00 You'll throw it over, right?

00:18:02 That's.

00:18:08 OK, now what I'd like you to look at is this rubber ball.

00:18:12 I'll put in this beaker, and I will add some liquid nitrogen to it.

00:18:17 And again, the nitrogen boils away as it

00:18:23 touches the warm beaker and the warm rubber ball.

00:18:27 And we'll let that go for a while, add a little more.

00:18:31 See how that stuff dances around?

00:18:33 It's a good way to dust off the table.

00:18:36 It's an expensive way to dust off the table.

00:18:39 Let that go.

00:18:43 Now, on our ethyl alcohol that we have here,

00:18:49 and you can see why people call it hard liquor.

00:19:00 If you think that's bad, just be patient.

00:19:02 It'll get worse.

00:19:07 I told you chemistry is a lot of fun, and I intend

00:19:09 to have a lot of fun with you today.

00:19:12 Now, this ball is dancing around there.

00:19:17 I'll come around to the other side and see what's happening to it.

00:19:20 And what I'll do is, it's quite cold in there.

00:19:28 So I'll come and use my glove again.

00:19:31 And you have to be ready for this.

00:19:33 If you're not ready, you're going to, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:19:36 It's really cold.

00:19:39 So we'll take this rubber ball out and see what happens to it now.

00:19:46 You see, that's a shattering experience.

00:19:55 I told you it would get worse before it gets better.

00:20:09 I see we have another special visitor.

00:20:36 Welcome, Santa.

00:20:38 Hi, Doc.

00:20:39 How are you doing?

00:20:39 Very good.

00:20:40 Merry Christmas.

00:20:41 Well, same to you.

00:20:42 Same to you.

00:20:43 I understand that you're a student from UW-North Pole.

00:20:48 Yes, yes.

00:20:50 I've been there a long time, too.

00:20:53 Let me help out a little bit by giving you this microphone, perhaps,

00:20:57 then people can understand what you're saying a little bit better.

00:21:02 So just speak into the microphone.

00:21:05 OK, I'll speak into the microphone.

00:21:07 Let me put this down.

00:21:09 Well, I thought today, what would your students

00:21:13 like to have for Christmas?

00:21:14 Anything else?

00:21:16 Yeah!

00:21:16 Yeah!

00:21:17 Yeah!

00:21:17 Yeah!

00:21:18 Yeah!

00:21:18 Yeah!

00:21:19 Yeah!

00:21:19 Yeah!

00:21:20 Yeah!

00:21:20 Yeah!

00:21:21 You want some help with that big final exam?

00:21:29 Isn't science wonderful?

00:21:32 You want some help with that big final exam?

00:21:35 Well, I'm going to help you out and give you

00:21:38 a way to remember some very important chemistry.

00:21:42 You learned in chemistry, I hope, that water

00:21:47 dissociates to a proton plus hydroxide ion, right?

00:21:55 Vicious, vicious.

00:21:57 Well, at the North Pole, three waters

00:22:02 goes to three protons plus ho, ho, ho.

00:22:08 Ho!

00:22:08 Ho!

00:22:09 Ho!

00:22:10 Ho!

00:22:10 Ho!

00:22:11 Ho!

00:22:11 Ho!

00:22:12 Ho!

00:22:12 Ho!

00:22:13 Ho!

00:22:13 Ho!

00:22:14 Ho!

00:22:14 Ho!

00:22:15 Ho!

00:22:15 Ho!

00:22:16 Ho!

00:22:16 Ho!

00:22:18 Now, now, we go out here?

00:22:19 We can do it right here.

00:22:20 Sure.

00:22:23 Now don't worry too much about this exam,

00:22:26 because I had my elves doing a little scouting.

00:22:30 And they tell me that Professor Shakasheri

00:22:33 gives a make-up final exam.

00:22:36 The way to do well on it is to make up all your answers.

00:22:40 That's right.

00:22:41 Now, now, I brought something for Dr. Shakasheri, too.

00:22:50 We developed this new Christmas candy.

00:22:53 It's a hard candy.

00:22:54 And in your honor, we call this Chemistry 103 Final Exam.

00:22:59 It's so hard, you'll never finish it

00:23:01 in less than two hours.

00:23:02 That's right.

00:23:03 Well, Santa, what else is new at the North Pole?

00:23:19 He does a good job.

00:23:24 Well, you know, nowadays there are so many toys out there,

00:23:29 it's hard for mommies and daddies

00:23:32 to figure out what to get their little boys and girls.

00:23:34 And it's hard for the little boys and girls

00:23:36 to figure out what they want.

00:23:38 So we have a new concept that we're opening up

00:23:40 little stands all over the country

00:23:43 called little gift rooms.

00:23:45 And you can go to these gift rooms

00:23:46 and find out about gifts.

00:23:48 Now, we have a whole set up here that works really very nicely.

00:23:54 Now, you have this book, this workbook for Christmas gift

00:24:07 audio tape lessons.

00:24:11 Now, you can see that it's written

00:24:14 by myself, Santa Claus, and some of my little helpers here.

00:24:20 Or as we call them up north, the subordinate clauses.

00:24:25 And inside, inside, you have little descriptions

00:24:36 of all of the toys that you can get.

00:24:38 Now, sometimes when you're looking at this,

00:24:41 it just isn't enough, is it?

00:24:42 So at the same time, we have a little cassette

00:24:45 you can listen to and get a description of the gift

00:24:49 at the same time.

00:24:50 And suppose if you even have a few more questions,

00:24:54 well, we'll have a little elf on duty

00:24:56 at all times in the gift room.

00:24:59 But he leaves Fridays at 1 o'clock,

00:25:01 so you've got to get there early.

00:25:07 Well, Santa, I really want to thank you

00:25:10 for stopping by here.

00:25:11 I know it's pretty cold up there,

00:25:13 and this is a somewhat warmer climate for you.

00:25:15 I know you have a busy schedule, but can you stay for a few

00:25:17 minutes and join Bucky Badger and President O'Neill

00:25:20 and all the people in the audience?

00:25:22 All right, all right.

00:25:25 I thought you gave me those.

00:25:27 You can have those.

00:25:27 Oh, thank you.

00:25:28 Thank you.

00:25:41 Now what I'd like to do is go back

00:25:44 to some of the things we were doing before

00:25:48 and try to see if we can continue with the discussion

00:25:53 that we were having and the different kinds of things

00:25:56 that we were having with liquid nitrogen.

00:25:58 Let's take a look at the mercury hammer here.

00:26:02 Oh, there it is.

00:26:03 Let's see if you can see it.

00:26:05 It's all beginning to melt now, and it's breaking up.

00:26:11 And you see the handle is off.

00:26:12 And mercury is a substance that we

00:26:16 have to be very careful about in terms of handling it.

00:26:19 And I just wanted to show you this, that it was really solid.

00:26:23 And I'll just take it away and make sure

00:26:25 that it is handled safely.

00:26:28 So I'd like to show you now, at least try to show you,

00:26:32 another liquid, a very cold liquid.

00:26:35 And this liquid is liquid oxygen.

00:26:38 What I'm going to try to do is take some gaseous oxygen

00:26:42 from this tank, and I'm going to bubble

00:26:44 this gaseous oxygen through this piece of copper coil,

00:26:48 which will be submerged in a bath of liquid nitrogen.

00:26:52 And we'll turn this on and let the liquid run through.

00:27:05 We'll try to collect it in here to see if anything is collected

00:27:10 there.

00:27:15 You see, as it bubbles away, you should

00:27:24 be able to see some liquid dripping out

00:27:27 of this piece of solid tubing.

00:27:29 Now I'll try to collect that liquid in there

00:27:32 and see what some of its properties are.

00:27:35 Of course, to do that, we've got to keep this going.

00:27:37 And as the liquid collects, it takes a little while

00:27:52 for it to collect.

00:27:58 We'll keep these filled up.

00:28:00 And beginning to see, perhaps, that there

00:28:02 is some liquid collecting at the bottom of this other thermos

00:28:07 bottle over here.

00:28:09 Now, this liquid is liquid oxygen,

00:28:13 and it has its own peculiar color.

00:28:16 Let's see if we can show you the color a little bit better.

00:28:20 It is a very light blue color, and it's

00:28:22 a very light blue color.

00:28:24 And it's a very light blue color.

00:28:26 Let's see if we can show you the color a little bit better.

00:28:28 It is a very light blue color.

00:28:30 Maybe this background is better for it.

00:28:33 I'll try that.

00:28:36 And this blue color is due to one

00:28:40 of the properties of the gas.

00:28:42 So what I'll do now is stop bubbling the gas through,

00:28:46 take this out, and we have this container now

00:28:53 with the blue liquid.

00:28:54 What I'd like to show you is a property of liquid oxygen

00:28:58 in comparison to that of liquid nitrogen

00:29:01 when I pour it between the poles of a very strong magnet.

00:29:04 I want to show you that I have a very strong magnet here.

00:29:07 You see?

00:29:08 This is a very strong magnet.

00:29:09 You're convinced it is, right?

00:29:12 Which pole is the North Pole, then?

00:29:14 Ha!

00:29:19 Santa, if you don't know which one is the North Pole,

00:29:22 you're in trouble.

00:29:24 We take some liquid nitrogen, and we

00:29:26 add it between the poles of this strong magnet.

00:29:30 And you see, it just runs through.

00:29:32 In contrast to, well, let's see what happens.

00:29:34 If we take some of this bluish liquid

00:29:36 and pour it between the poles of the magnet,

00:29:39 you see some of it is held between the poles

00:29:41 of the magnet, indicating the magnetic properties

00:29:44 of this liquid oxygen in contrast

00:29:47 to that of liquid nitrogen.

00:29:49 You see, it's held there until it evaporates.

00:29:51 I have a little more here.

00:29:53 I'll just add some of that to it.

00:29:57 So now, I want to show you, again,

00:30:01 another property of liquid oxygen.

00:30:04 I'll take some of this liquid oxygen

00:30:06 and put it in this test tube.

00:30:08 You see, it boils away, just like liquid nitrogen

00:30:10 did, until the test tube cools down.

00:30:14 Perhaps you can see its color now as it's boiling away.

00:30:24 And then it settles down when the test tube

00:30:28 is at the same temperature.

00:30:29 I'll just stick it in here for a second

00:30:31 and see what happens to it.

00:30:36 Now, you know, I teach chemistry at the university.

00:30:41 And quite often, I get tired of the daily routine.

00:30:46 So I go home, and I relax.

00:30:47 And one of the things that I do, I smoke a cigarette.

00:30:51 Let's see if that, uh, people actually like this?

00:31:02 But by way of relaxation, what I try to do

00:31:05 is to have a liquid oxygen cocktail

00:31:08 along with my cigarette.

00:31:10 So let's see how that works.

00:31:13 Cheers.

00:31:21 And you see, liquid oxygen, as you probably know or have

00:31:29 learned, supports combustion quite readily.

00:31:34 In fact, let's see what happens when

00:31:36 I take this cigarette, which is still lit,

00:31:38 and I put it into this beaker, taking these things out

00:31:43 of the way, and I pour the liquid oxygen on it.

00:31:46 Oh.

00:31:49 And that's what you should do with all cigarettes.

00:31:56 Ha.

00:31:57 All right, now what I'd like to do

00:32:09 is move on to a different area.

00:32:13 I'll clear some of these things out of the way

00:32:17 in order to show you some other substance, which

00:32:20 is a very common substance that we've talked about already.

00:32:26 Namely, this substance is rubber.

00:32:29 What we're trying to do now is to prepare some rubbery

00:32:36 material by carrying out a reaction

00:32:40 between the contents of these two bottles.

00:32:44 And so we have a mixture.

00:32:49 We will have a mixture of what's in those two bottles

00:32:52 fairly quickly.

00:32:54 We take a stirring rod, and we mix the contents here

00:32:57 quite rapidly.

00:33:00 And then we take the bottle opener and uncap the bottle

00:33:06 and quickly add the contents of this small vial

00:33:09 to the bottle and just shake.

00:33:13 Now, for a reaction to take place,

00:33:15 you have to mix the two reactants together.

00:33:18 And changes take place in volume sometimes,

00:33:22 sometimes in color.

00:33:23 If you look very carefully at this,

00:33:25 you'll see that there is a color change that's

00:33:27 already occurring.

00:33:28 If the material is getting somewhat solid,

00:33:31 sometimes the reactions take place very slowly.

00:33:33 Sometimes they take place at a fast rate.

00:33:37 All we have to do in studying chemistry

00:33:38 is to be patient and make sure that they're

00:33:41 mixed together quite well.

00:33:43 Because if we don't mix them well,

00:33:46 nothing sometimes happens.

00:33:50 And sometimes even if you mix them well, nothing happens.

00:33:55 But in doing science, we have to be patient.

00:33:57 We have to make as many observations as we possibly

00:33:59 can about the kinds of things that take place.

00:34:02 For example, the temperature here

00:34:04 is getting a little higher because I can report to you

00:34:07 that as I touch this bottle, that the temperature is

00:34:10 going up.

00:34:11 And but sometimes maybe what I did

00:34:16 is I stoppered this a little too.

00:34:19 There we go.

00:34:21 And what we've done here is prepared some rubber.

00:34:37 Which is beginning to shrink, as you see.

00:34:48 It's shrinking because the liquid that

00:34:51 was in this pop-type bottle is trapped

00:34:54 between the rubbery material here.

00:34:56 It's beginning to evaporate.

00:34:57 And those of you who are sitting near the front of the room

00:34:59 here are beginning to smell the odor of this material.

00:35:02 But watch it shrink.

00:35:04 And we can see that it is quite elastic.

00:35:07 I don't want to touch it by hand because it's not quite safe

00:35:10 to touch.

00:35:10 But I want to show you that it has this elasticity to it.

00:35:15 OK.

00:35:16 So that's an example of how mixing two things together

00:35:23 results in the formation of, in this case, a polymer.

00:35:27 And this specific polymer has this rubber properties.

00:35:33 Now I'd like to shift gears a little bit

00:35:37 and move on to a different area.

00:35:40 Well, before I do that, I just want

00:35:42 to report to you that this is, of course, the Christmas

00:35:48 season.

00:35:48 And what I'd like to do is treat this season

00:35:51 with a great deal of enthusiasm.

00:35:54 And what I have here is a piece of copper.

00:35:57 This piece of copper has been cut in the shape that you see.

00:36:02 And this piece of copper is, well,

00:36:06 you can see what shape it is.

00:36:07 I'm just simply going to submerge it in this,

00:36:10 place it in this big beaker if it stays up straight.

00:36:14 And I'm going to pour a colorless liquid on top of it.

00:36:20 Whoops.

00:36:22 Of course, I tripped it.

00:36:23 I'll try to straighten it out.

00:36:24 Now we'll see what happens as this liquid, if anything

00:36:41 happens, as this liquid reacts with the copper.

00:36:47 This liquid that I'm adding is silver nitrate.

00:36:49 We'll let this go for a while.

00:36:52 It's kind of a, straighten out a little bit here, fellow.

00:36:57 Ah, it keeps tipping over.

00:36:58 Oh, well, we'll just set it there

00:37:01 and move on to the next thing.

00:37:04 The next thing also involves a reaction of copper,

00:37:08 which I would like to show you right now.

00:37:11 This reaction, it turns out, is very important

00:37:13 not only to the University of Wisconsin system,

00:37:16 President O'Neill, but to the state of Wisconsin as well.

00:37:19 This reaction is important because it's

00:37:23 going to help us solve the budget problem.

00:37:25 As you know, state of Wisconsin has a budgetary problem.

00:37:30 The university has budgetary problems.

00:37:32 The students are being asked to pay higher tuition.

00:37:35 So we have to solve, we've got to solve this problem.

00:37:39 And in solving this problem, we're

00:37:41 going to use a series of chemical reactions

00:37:45 involving something that alchemists have dreamt about,

00:37:50 namely to change copper into silver

00:37:53 and perhaps change silver into gold.

00:37:55 And so what I'm going to do is take this copper penny

00:38:00 that I have in front of me here.

00:38:02 You can see it's a copper penny.

00:38:03 There's Abe Lincoln on it.

00:38:05 And what I'm going to do is drop this copper penny

00:38:09 into this reaction mixture, which

00:38:13 consists of some sodium hydroxide and some zinc.

00:38:17 And we'll heat them up for a little bit

00:38:19 and see what's happening here.

00:38:21 You see, there's the copper penny on the inside.

00:38:24 Things are boiling away.

00:38:27 Everything is getting kind of dark.

00:38:35 I will take the heat away from it

00:38:37 and see what has happened to the copper penny.

00:38:48 As I lift it out, you can see that it

00:38:49 has changed its appearance.

00:38:51 It looks like a silvery material now.

00:38:55 And so far, we've succeeded in changing the copper

00:38:58 into silver.

00:38:59 Whoops, there it fell.

00:39:01 Try to get it out again.

00:39:03 And what I'll do is I'll simply dry it a little bit.

00:39:10 And then quickly take it and stick it in the flame.

00:39:13 And we'll see what happens as it is in the flame.

00:39:18 As it's in the flame, it's beginning to change color,

00:39:21 you see.

00:39:21 And quite quickly, we submerge it in this bath.

00:39:28 Whoops, there it fell again.

00:39:29 Well, how am I going to fish it out now?

00:39:34 Let me just turn off the gas here,

00:39:38 because it's getting quite hot.

00:39:41 And what I would like to show you

00:39:42 is what I have prepared before, namely this series of pennies.

00:39:47 And you see two of them are silvery,

00:39:50 and the middle two are gold pennies.

00:39:52 And this way, the chemistry students

00:39:55 are going to help the University of Wisconsin

00:39:57 solve its budgetary problems, since now we've

00:40:00 made some pennies that have this golden appearance.

00:40:05 Now, having done this and having promised you

00:40:07 before that things will get better before they get worse,

00:40:11 it has been a tradition in this special lecture

00:40:15 for me to read a poem.

00:40:17 This poem was written by a variety of people.

00:40:19 It has a lot of lines in it.

00:40:22 Some of them are good.

00:40:23 Some of them are not so good.

00:40:26 I wrote some of the lines, and I'll

00:40:27 let you judge which ones I wrote, which ones I didn't.

00:40:31 I'd like to dedicate this poem to our special visitors, Bucky

00:40:36 Badger and Santa Claus.

00:40:38 And with your permission, Bucky and Santa,

00:40:41 I'd like to read this poem.

00:40:44 It goes like this.

00:40:46 Once upon a Christmas dreary, in the lab of Shakashiri.

00:40:51 Christmas, you say, and in the lab,

00:40:54 most would find it sad and drab.

00:40:57 But not in the lab of Shakashiri,

00:40:59 where everything is bright and cheery.

00:41:03 Ring stands stood in dark gloom, scattered widely

00:41:07 around the room, so thin and spare

00:41:10 that none could match the cedars of Lebanon.

00:41:14 You know, I was born in Lebanon.

00:41:15 No mistletoe there was for kissing.

00:41:21 Even you, the stars, were missing.

00:41:24 The place had a stinking smell, which

00:41:29 made one feel not too well.

00:41:33 When suddenly, there was a knock.

00:41:35 Shiri stood in a state of shock.

00:41:39 Get it?

00:41:39 Shakashiri, right?

00:41:46 I have to explain it to you, huh?

00:41:49 Out from the hood jumped Santa Claus,

00:41:52 holding 103 chemistry books in his paws.

00:41:57 Santa started to sway his hips when

00:42:01 he found out about chem tips.

00:42:05 I became very irate when he dissolved my precipitate.

00:42:14 Then he shrieked, from my helper, keep abreast.

00:42:18 She's not taking your hourly test.

00:42:21 Keep your hands off my sweet blonde.

00:42:23 I know about your covalent bond.

00:42:38 He was being completely unfair.

00:42:41 As a Lewis acid, all I wanted was a pair.

00:42:52 Santa, Santa, while he could, started

00:42:56 leaving through the hood.

00:42:58 He disappeared with fan and fare.

00:43:01 And Shakashiri, standing there, saw an endpoint in the air.

00:43:07 That's the end of the poem here.

00:43:09 Thank you.

00:43:20 What I'd like to do next is try to show you

00:43:22 the effect of temperature on a variety of other things,

00:43:26 specifically the contents of these three flasks.

00:43:30 These three flasks contain a brown substance.

00:43:36 And you can see that the intensity

00:43:39 of the color of what's in the three flasks is about the same.

00:43:44 These are sealed flasks.

00:43:46 And they are, as I say, brown in color.

00:43:48 What I'm going to do is leave this one at room temperature.

00:43:53 And I'm going to take the one on the left, on my left,

00:43:57 your right, and submerge it in this bath of ice water.

00:44:01 And take this one and submerge it in a bath of hot water.

00:44:05 And we'll try to observe the changes, if any,

00:44:09 as they take place in the intensity of the color that

00:44:13 is developed.

00:44:14 Now, in doing chemical experiments,

00:44:16 in doing any scientific experiment,

00:44:18 it's important to keep track of the time, the length of time

00:44:21 under which you change conditions.

00:44:22 Well, we didn't do this in this case.

00:44:25 But I would estimate that we've had these submerged in here

00:44:28 for about maybe 15, 20 seconds, a little bit longer.

00:44:31 As I take them out, you see that the intensity

00:44:33 of the color of the flask that was in the hot bath is higher.

00:44:38 It's deeper brown than the one that

00:44:40 was at room temperature, which, in turn,

00:44:42 is deeper brown than the one that was in the ice bath.

00:44:46 Of course, the difference in temperature

00:44:48 between the room temperature and the ice bath

00:44:50 is smaller than the difference in temperature

00:44:52 between the one at room temperature

00:44:55 and the one that was in the hot bath.

00:44:57 That the intensity of the color of whatever

00:44:59 the substance is in there has been

00:45:02 affected by temperature.

00:45:04 Now, I'm going to do something that many people, in fact,

00:45:07 even experienced chemists, have not seen before.

00:45:10 I'm going to take this cold, the one that was in the cold bath,

00:45:13 and I'm going to submerge it in some liquid nitrogen,

00:45:17 if I have any left here.

00:45:19 And we'll see what happens as we add liquid nitrogen.

00:45:27 And I say this because I am convinced not too many people

00:45:33 have seen the difference that, as we take this,

00:45:38 and I simply submerge it in the cold temperature bath.

00:45:44 And we'll keep it there for maybe, oh, 15, 20 seconds,

00:45:48 and we'll see what happens to it.

00:45:51 Notice that the temperature effect over here

00:45:54 is still in operation because the intensity of the color

00:45:58 is quite higher than it was before.

00:46:01 So let me just see.

00:46:02 Let me just take this out and see what happened.

00:46:04 There we go.

00:46:05 I think the substance that you're looking at now,

00:46:07 this blue color that you see at the bottom, this blue color

00:46:11 is due to a reaction that's taking place

00:46:15 at low temperature.

00:46:16 The contents of all three flasks is the gaseous substance

00:46:21 nitrogen dioxide, which then has been

00:46:25 cooled to this low temperature.

00:46:26 And one of the things that we do in research

00:46:28 is try to find out exactly what the identity

00:46:31 of this chemical substance is, why it has this color,

00:46:34 how come it's not a different color, and so on.

00:46:36 As I say, quite a few people have not

00:46:38 seen this color change before.

00:46:40 Well, enough about that now.

00:46:42 And I think what I'd like to do is

00:46:44 move on to show you a different kind of reaction that

00:46:49 takes place.

00:46:50 I'd like you to look at this large beaker

00:46:53 that I have over here.

00:46:55 And this large beaker has a magnetic stirrer,

00:46:58 a magnetic bar sitting on a magnetic stirrer.

00:47:00 And I'm going to be mixing two clear solutions in it

00:47:05 of various amounts.

00:47:06 And we'll mix those, and we'll see what happens.

00:47:09 So far, nothing happened as I mix this.

00:47:12 I'll take some of this and mix that.

00:47:14 And you'll see that quite a dramatic thing has happened.

00:47:22 The substance that is held in the column,

00:47:25 sort of in the middle, it's held until the mixing is complete.

00:47:28 It has its own characteristic color.

00:47:30 The color that you see is yellowish orange.

00:47:34 And if I add a little bit more of this,

00:47:35 let's see what happens if I add more of this.

00:47:38 You see it's yellowish at the top,

00:47:40 and still yellow now.

00:47:47 And every time I look at this, it reminds me,

00:47:49 as I'm sure it might remind some of you, of the shape

00:47:51 of a tornado, those of you who have seen a tornado.

00:47:54 And that's why we call this the orange tornado.

00:47:56 Well, this is a chemical reaction

00:47:59 consisting of a mixture of a variety of substances

00:48:04 that are insoluble.

00:48:05 And this substance solubility is determined

00:48:08 by the rate of mixing that we have in here.

00:48:11 And that's the orange tornado that I wanted to show you.

00:48:16 Let's take a look back at the copper tree that we had here.

00:48:22 And let's see what it looks like now.

00:48:24 I'll try to straighten it out.

00:48:26 And as you see, it's beginning to look like a Christmas tree

00:48:32 with all kinds of decorations on it.

00:48:36 And the solution has turned somewhat bluish in color.

00:48:39 The copper has dissolved in solution,

00:48:41 and silver has deposited on this tree.

00:48:44 And, oops, well, you have to be careful about the way

00:48:47 in which these things are handled.

00:48:50 Now, as we check the Christmas tree,

00:48:52 I'm going to try to show you another way of perhaps making

00:48:58 some Christmas decorations.

00:48:59 Let me just sneak down here and get some of my things.

00:49:04 I'll just need this board here.

00:49:06 And I'll need these two flasks that have a liquid in them.

00:49:15 Now, what I'm going to do is try to pour this liquid kind

00:49:18 of carefully on.

00:49:27 And so far, the liquid is being poured carefully.

00:49:30 And there it goes.

00:49:34 Wow.

00:49:42 Now, Santa Claus is paying attention very carefully here

00:49:44 because he can use some of these chemical magic tricks

00:49:47 in making some ornaments if he wishes to.

00:49:50 Here's a very nice mound now.

00:49:56 Now, let's see if we can do this.

00:49:58 Just extend this a little more.

00:50:05 If one is careful in doing this, you

00:50:06 can get it to extend up and up without making

00:50:10 it tip over and break.

00:50:15 One has got to be careful about this.

00:50:19 There we go.

00:50:20 And this is a substance that has crystallized now

00:50:24 from a supersaturated solution.

00:50:27 Now, let me move on very quickly and show you

00:50:31 a different set of reactions that I will carry on out here.

00:50:35 These reactions are important.

00:50:39 Well, we'll see if they're important.

00:50:41 Let's find out what happens.

00:50:42 I'm going to mix the contents of the beakers

00:50:43 from the back row with the contents of the beakers

00:50:46 in the front row.

00:50:47 And I'll keep track of time by counting, OK?

00:50:51 So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

00:50:55 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

00:50:59 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

00:51:02 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

00:51:06 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

00:51:09 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

00:51:16 Whoops.

00:51:18 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, oh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,

00:51:23 10, 9 and 1 half, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, goes on a count of 6.

00:51:33 Well, this is an example of a clock reaction.

00:51:45 That's an example of a clock reaction

00:51:47 where the changes take place.

00:51:49 If you mix solutions of equal concentrations,

00:51:52 changes take place in color at the same time.

00:51:55 Now let me just try to show you, anyway,

00:51:57 another type of reaction that takes place.

00:52:00 That is, between these three substances,

00:52:02 colorless liquids that we'll add together.

00:52:06 Now watch what happens, if anything happens.

00:52:09 You have to watch this very carefully.

00:52:19 The solution has changed color.

00:52:21 And there it changes color again.

00:52:25 And then it changes color again.

00:52:34 It goes colorless, yellowish, and then dark blue.

00:52:40 And this repeats, this cyclic pattern repeats itself.

00:52:44 That's why we call this an oscillating reaction.

00:52:48 And in studying the behavior of chemical systems,

00:52:51 we are interested in finding out the intricate details of how

00:52:54 this reaction proceeds, why it changes, why it oscillates,

00:52:58 why the gas bubbles are given off,

00:53:00 why the color duration is what it is, and so on.

00:53:02 That's the kind of thing that we try to do in chemistry.

00:53:06 Well, a couple of other things that we try to do in chemistry

00:53:09 involve, oh, look what happened to our big, beautiful mound

00:53:13 here.

00:53:13 It fell off.

00:53:15 Well, that's the way it is.

00:53:16 What I'd like to do now is, once again,

00:53:23 ask Fred and Vince to come and help me prepare something

00:53:26 which is quite feasible.

00:53:39 Why don't you come out to the middle

00:53:41 here so that everybody can see what you're doing.

00:53:44 And what they have is these flasks,

00:53:50 and what they're doing.

00:54:14 Now, clearly, they're carrying out a chemical reaction

00:54:18 because we can see changes taking place.

00:54:21 We can see that the appearance of the flask

00:54:24 is changing as they swirl the contents

00:54:26 and mix them properly.

00:54:27 In fact, you're beginning to see quite a few reflections

00:54:32 as you look very closely at this.

00:54:35 And you can see, Santa Claus, that the appearance

00:54:40 of these flasks has changed now such

00:54:42 that they are pretty good ornaments

00:54:45 for doing the kind of thing that you like to do

00:54:48 around this time of the year.

00:54:49 Now, what I have done before, you see,

00:54:55 is prepare this big one here.

00:54:59 And what we'd like to do is present these three

00:55:03 silver ornaments to our special guests, President O'Neill,

00:55:06 Bucky Badger, and Santa Claus right now.

00:55:08 So let's present them to them right now.

00:55:10 Now, just hang on to them.

00:55:24 Everything is safe to handle.

00:55:26 And these are special presents that we'd like you to keep.

00:55:30 As we move on here quite rapidly,

00:55:32 and also in keeping with the season that we're in now,

00:55:37 once again, I'd like to ask Fred to come out and give us

00:55:40 a special salute for the, well, we'll see what it is.

00:55:45 Come on out, Fred.

00:55:58 Now, Fred, I think it would be appropriate,

00:56:00 since we have Bucky Badger here, to show us

00:56:02 your chemical musical talents.

00:56:04 So you can't do other things with beakers, OK?

00:56:07 Besides mix things.

00:56:08 So what we want to do is do this.

00:56:11 Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

00:56:15 Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

00:56:20 ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

00:56:23 You've got to be careful not to knock it over.

00:56:25 All right.

00:56:26 That's a salute to Bucky.

00:56:28 Thank you.

00:56:38 How about a salute to Santa Claus?

00:56:40 Sure, I can do that, too.

00:56:42 Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

00:56:48 ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

00:56:54 ding, ding.

00:56:58 Thank you.

00:57:16 Now what I'd like to do is try to show you

00:57:18 one more chemical reaction here.

00:57:20 And I know we're coming to the end very rapidly.

00:57:24 What we'll do is mix the contents of these two bottles

00:57:29 quickly.

00:57:31 And of course, for a reaction to take place,

00:57:35 we'd better mix things carefully.

00:57:37 And mix them up and stir them up.

00:57:39 And if you look at this, you can begin

00:57:41 to see that the color is beginning to change.

00:57:45 The texture is changing.

00:57:46 And you just have to mix things sometimes

00:57:55 for a longer period of time than you had planned to.

00:57:59 My hand is getting tired here.

00:58:02 So what I'd like to do now is, I think,

00:58:04 simply stop mixing and see what happens.

00:58:07 As we do this, as you watch this,

00:58:09 I'd like you to join me in thanking President O'Neill

00:58:13 for joining us, also in thanking

00:58:15 Bucky Badger and Santa Claus.

00:58:17 And especially, I want to express my thanks

00:58:20 to all the people who have helped make this possible.

00:58:23 I want to thank all my associates.

00:58:27 I want to thank the television crew, who

00:58:29 are bringing you the change that I

00:58:31 had hoped they would bring you.

00:58:34 And again, I want to close by wishing everyone

00:58:37 a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

00:58:40 And I hope to see you all next year.

00:58:44 Try again.

00:58:45 Come on.

00:58:51 Try again.

00:58:52 Come on, try one more time, please.

00:58:58 Try one more time.

00:59:01 Come on.

00:59:05 Try.

00:59:06 Come on.

00:59:07 Come on.

00:59:08 Try one more time.

00:59:09 Come on.

00:59:11 Come on.

00:59:15 Come on.

00:59:19 Come on.