In today's video,
we are taking a pile of Himalayan salt lamps,
and putting them through some stress test
to see just what they can and cannot handle.
[Music]
Guys, ironically enough, just a few hours ago today,
Veritasium released a video that debunked
whether or not Himalayan salt crystal lamps were
actually good for you,
and released enough negative ions into the atmosphere
to actually boost your mood.
However, we still have a bunch of salt lamps.
So, we are going to be putting these
through a few tests to see just
what they can and cannot survive.
Here's the basic idea.
We have three salt lamps,
and we are going to see just what sort
of stress test they can handle.
This is going to involve water, heat,
and maybe a few other things.
So as far as these lamps are concerned,
it has been debunked
that they can't really release that many negative ions to make
a positive impact on moods or anything like that.
However, there are types of crystals
that have been proven to basically boost your mood
because of the way they release negative ions.
One of those is tourmaline.
Now, that is much more expensive than Himalayan salt,
which is probably one of the reasons why
these are much more commercially available.
That said, we just sort of want to put them to the test,
and see what else they can do.
All right.
So for our first test,
well, we wanted to throw one in the forge but...
It's snowing really hard outside right now.
So we're going to stick with the indoor experiments today,
and then move forward from there.
So first off,
while I have heard
that these lamps can absorb moisture from the atmosphere,
I want to find out whether or not they can melt.
Some people say they can't, some people say they can.
Let's put it to the test.
So for these videos, we don't need the base,
we're just kind of taking them apart,
and I am very disappointed
because It's a lot easier than I wanted it to be.
But it's good for our purpose is.
[Music]
Perfect.
That's a very large chunk of salt.
So for one of our first stress test here,
I have heard it said that you cannot melt
or dissolve one of these lamps.
I don't know if that's true,
and I want to find out.
So the first thing
that we're going to do is run one of these under some water
on the time-lapse.
See what happens.
We're also going to put one
in a pot of boiling water on the stove,
see if it dissolves.
All right.
So we've got everything set up for our time-lapse.
Sorry about the dirty dishes,
but we want to see just how long it takes to erode
away one of these salt lamps.
[Music]
Stress test number one,
can you erode a Himalayan salt lamp with water?
Yes.
So we were playing with glass on the table earlier,
so I'm hoping this is just salt.
Yeah, that's salt.
Okay.
All right, stress test number two.
So we have seen
that you can erode away one of these salt lamps
with just using tap water.
So we've actually got a little set up here on the stove.
So this is going to be slightly submerged in boiling water,
and while I do believe
that's just going to dissolve it,
I'm curious to see what the steam will do.
I want to see
if that's actually going to help erode and dissolve
the outside of it as well.
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We've definitely made a mess.
So the salt itself seems
like it's mostly been fine from the steam.
Like I was expecting it to get that same glassy outside
that we were getting on the one that had the water running
over it and eroding it away.
Instead, what we've gotten is the water
itself is turned almost opaque,
and it splattered salt everywhere,
like the pot is just coated in a powdery salt,
and I'm very curious.
I do think it's lost some of its volume here.
So I'm going to try and pick it up.
I want to know just
how much of it sunk through the grating.
That's kind of hot to the touch.
Not too--
It's not too bad,
but I'm putting on different glove.
[Music]
All right.
Time lapse is definitely going to show that better,
because we lost about half of its volume there.
I was not expecting that.
But it is not nearly as smooth as it was
when we eroded the other one away.
This is so very very rough,
course, almost the same as it is on the other side.
Not nearly as effective as I thought it was going to be,
especially compared to the eroding.
Can you dissolve a salt lamp using steam?
Yes, but it would probably take a very long time.
So comparatively,
running it under water versus simply allowing the steam
to do the work for you,
this one's going to survive, that one, not so much.
All right.
So we've tried eroding one of our salt lamps.
We've tried dissolving one,
and now, we want to try melting one.
But to do that,
we're going to need a lot more heat.
All right guys, so we've made it up to the Dome.
We've already eroded one salt lamp.
We've tried to dissolve another.
So for our final one, we're going to melt it.
So we got this thing.
This is an extra large crucible
that just so happens to hold our salt lamp perfectly.
So, let's drop it in, see what happens.
[Music]
Sure, that's gonna work.
[Music]
It's very cold here, guys.
[Music]
All right, so it's been about 10 minutes,
and we've actually had this on time lapse.
But I'm not sure
if we're actually going to get the ambient heat
in our forge to be warm enough to actually melt the salt.
So what we're going to do is put the lid on now.
Hopefully, leave it for a little while,
and when we come back, it should be melted?
[Music]
All right, so I just checked on this,
and I think we actually managed to do this, guys.
It's been about an hour and a half,
which is not as long as we were expecting this to take.
We have successfully melted an entire Himalayan salt lamp.
Oh wow!
So I was not expecting it to have that much
of volume left over.
[Music]
Whoop.
Yep, and it's on fire.
I lit a stick on fire with molten salt.
That's just cool.
It's actually leaking out over the side.
There is so much more to that than I thought there was.
Well, I was going to try and take it out
and pour it into something.
But with how much there is here,
and with the size of that crucible,
it's not really going to be safe for me to try and lift
that up and transport it.
So we're going to let it sit there and cool down,
see what it looks like ince it's actually solidified again.
Or we can actually get our tongs around it safely, transport it,
and dump it out.
That's really cool.
Like I know I don't want to touch that,
but I actually really want to touch that.
[Music]
So, we left this about
30 minutes to try and let it harden.
It hasn't really cool that much.
It's still radiating a ton of heat.
And I'm not sure if it's solid yet.
So the surface is no longer molten.
Now, I don't trust
that to be the case all the way through it,
but we're still going to try and get that out.
[Music]
That is a giant crucible just full of salt.
And the surface isn't pink anymore.
We're definitely gonna have to reheat this crucible to get
the salt out at a later date,
but it's going to stay like that for now.
So, can you erode salt lamp away with water?
Yes, you can.
Can you dissolve it?
Not as well, but you can still do that, too.
Can you melt it?
Absolutely, and that was actually a lot faster
than we were expecting it to be.
That's pretty cool.
Well, I am kind of sad
that Veritasium proved that you can't actually get
negative ions from heating up a salt lamp,
because I think I win the award for most
heated up salt lamp ever.
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