three two one go for it
today we're using gummy bears in chemistry and you're probably wondering why am i so excited
that's because we're gonna be talking about the topic of
through solid welcome to impossible science
hey everyone it's jason latimer world champion of magic coming to you with another impossible
science the show where we take impossible topics and we see if we can actually bring them to life
somehow through science now unfortunately what you just saw with the gummy bears passing through the
bottom of the flask that is actually a trick but that doesn't change the subject can we actually
get gummy bears to pass through another object and it turns out it's not going to be any object it's
going to be a plate of metal okay before we can get gummy bears to pass through a sheet of metal
i want to go over a couple things an endothermic process is something that requires energy to
happen usually in the form of heat so you can think of it as ice melting into water
it requires heat in order for it to take place now an exothermic process is something that gives
off energy or heat it's the exact opposite so you can think of it as water giving off heat in order
to turn into ice cubes now why is that important because today we're going to be using potassium
chlorate now this is a chemical you should not be finding at your house by the way this is not
an at-home experiment what happens is if i add heat to this at roughly 673 degrees that's the
melting point for potassium chlorate and they will actually decompose and give off oxygen making this
an example of an endothermic reaction if i get a sufficient amount of oxygen i can use that oxygen
to react with the sugar that's in gummy bears now none of us have actually seen gummy bears
spontaneously ignite that's because it's not the right percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere nor
is it the right temperature but if i had enough oxygen and i had a high enough temperature
boom the sugars in these gummy bears will spontaneously ignite
this endothermic reaction requires energy to decompose the potassium chlorate to give off
oxygen now with the elevated oxygen content it will cause more gummy bears to melt releasing
more heat in this exothermic reaction so you can imagine that if this was hot gives us oxygen this
melts gets hotter which then gives off more oxygen which then burns more sugar you can understand why
this could be a very violent reaction so i looked up different melting points and found that zinc
zinc has a melting point of 787 degrees that means it's only about 110 degrees different from the
melting point from this and i figured if we could get enough sugar and enough potassium chlorate
together with enough heat we should be able to just get these gummy bears to pass right through
a solid object so i did like all my experiments and i just contacted the ventura county fire
department and told them what i was going to do so i could find a safe place to do this and then the
second thing i did was contacted collins key and devon keep and said you're not gonna believe this
i'm gonna be able to take gummy bears and we're gonna get them to cut a piece of metal
what's up if you guys haven't checked out their experiments on youtube they do crazy stuff yeah
but this is i think the most ludicrous thing i've ever heard we're gonna be melting a piece of metal
with a flippin gummy bear yeah what is going on impossible well we're gonna take the sugar as
fuel this potassium chloride when it gets heated up we're gonna release some oxygen with the heat
and the fuel we're gonna have a flame now i search all over the internet to find out the
temperature of this thing i like to do the searching myself and it's uh it's very hot
it's very hot but my guess is that it's hot enough to melt this piece of zinc
i'm so ready wait why is there a little indent in the zinc okay so when this gets heated up
it's going to turn to a liquid so rather than if we need to concentrate the potassium chlorate
of the potassium chloride yes in the puddle then your job is to throw those in there all
right i'm ready i thought jason was gonna say he got mad just punched it one day but
i think that's a better explanation don't make me angry do not try this at home no
we have our safety goggles we have our safety gloves and we have the permission from the fire
department yep oh yeah all right here we go i don't know i'm not no let's mix on fire
all right so let's get it going yep and then kind of around the edge of your feet yeah yeah it once
it has to heat up to about uh i think potassium chlorate is about 670 degrees right around there
it will start to melt so we have a lot to get through i'll just get tilted on the side here okay
so when you're dealing with a fire you need you need oxygen you need heat and you need fuel
gummy bears in this case are the fuel okay here we go now we're gonna pour this into a puddle
here holy cow and it's crazy like a moment ago it was literally just powder and now it's this
boiling substance all right go for it all right here we go ready three two one go for it wow
the moment the gummy bears goes in the wind picks up too yeah right
that looks banana this looks awesome holy cow look at night
a gummy bear just did that that is insane wow wow you know i to be honest i can't see
the gummy bear anymore it's kind of burnt but it just recognizes reduce it to carbon
yeah uh oxygen and water actually is in there i wouldn't drink it though no
there you have it gummy bears can actually cut through a sheet of metal it's just wild we really
did get a gummy bear to cut through another object now it didn't look like a gummy bear
at the end of that that's for sure but we were able to make something impossible take place
through science and if you enjoy that idea of making the impossible possible through science
let me know click the like button share the video with your friends and make sure you let me know in
the comments below if you're having fun with these goofy experiments and until next time stay curious
because the right question changes everything all right all right so now it's my turn right
yeah you're heating this up oh yeah we should probably mention this yeah do not try this at home