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  • 5 minutes

Street Science with Jon Chase

Updated Monday, 14 October 2019
How do you get an egg into a glass bottle without touching it? Jon Chase gives us a lesson in Street Science

Transcript

Jon Chase
I’ve got a load of demonstrations here I want to get you lot involved in.  I’m going to try and describe to you why they happen and try give you examples of how that’s used in like society and around us, you know what I mean?

This is just a gyroscope.  This is the thing that’s in a rocket yeah to try and keep it going in the same direction.

Student
Incredible.

Student
Well if you bounce it around.

Student
Spinning.

Jon Chase
Yeah.  You can bounce it around a little bit.  Yeah.  It should stay like that.

Student
No way.

Student
Whoa. 

Student
It’s spinning in the middle.

Jon Chase
Yeah.

Title: Sucking Eggs

Student
Who reckons they can get this egg in this bottle without breaking the egg?  Does everyone know what flames need to burn?

Student
Oxygen.

Jon Chase
Oxygen.

Student
I said that.

Jon Chase
Right.  And you know there’s a certain amount of oxygen in that jar.  Every time you light that you’re using up the oxygen inside, and it’ll get to a point where the oxygen goes.

Student
Oh that’s not fair it didn’t do that to ours.

Student
And then put the egg...

Jon Chase
Put the egg on the top.

Student
You see it’s not working.

Student
It is.

Student
Oh my god. 

Student
Yeah that’s how it was meant…

Student
You can’t do it without breaking though.

Jon Chase
Yeah.  You can’t do it without breaking.  How would you do it without breaking it?  You need to lubricate it with the water, because what happens is yeah because the outside of it will slide better into the bottle.

Student
Oh okay.

Jon Chase
Yeah. 

Student
Can we do it again then?

Jon Chase
Yeah.

Student
God.

Jon Chase
I’m going to try this then.  I don’t know if this is going to work.  But that’s science, that doesn’t always go right.  Come on now.  Oh that’s science gone bad.  

Title: Airforce

Who thinks they can get this into the bottle without moving the bottle?  Go on try it.  This is street science; it means you can do it.  It’s not about me, it’s about you, you can do it, go on try it.

Student
Blow it…

Jon Chase
Blow it.  Yeah go on. 

Student
Ow.

Jon Chase
Yeah…

Student
Just blow it yeah.

Jon Chase
However you think.

Student
Well you can’t blow it, because it comes out.

Student
Okay.  Let me try.

Student
No.

Student
Whoa. 

Student
It’s the force that’s in there isn’t it?

Jon Chase
Yeah.

Student
Get out!

Jon Chase
You can imagine that as you blow in all the particles shove in, create enough pressure and push it back out, so you need to do the opposite.  You’ve got to take air out of the inside. 

Student
By sucking.

Jon Chase
By sucking.  If you do it, if you’ve got a straw you just put the straw in and it works.

Title: Pulling Men

Student
What else have I got?  You want to try a little game of strength using these.  Yeah so I need the two strongest people here.

[Laughter]  

Jon Chase
And I need someone else.  All right, wicked, to hold onto that.  You’ve got to hold onto that as hard as you can yeah, and you don’t want to move at all yeah.

Student
Yeah.

Jon Chase
So that’s the thing.  And all you’ve got to do is pull on that cord as hard as you can and you lot got to resist it.  Okay.  Pull it harder and we’ll try that again.

Student
Wow so strong.  

Jon Chase
Goes back around like this.  You lot holding on tight?  Each other now right, all right.  Let’s try it again.  Can get this around one more time.  You lot are starting to feel the pressure now ain’t it?  Three, two, one, pull that.  Pull that, look at that!  You see that, all the way over there?  Look, look!  One foot away, oh bless, bless, bless.

Student
Wow.

Jon Chase
So that’s some crazy stuff right there.

Student
Right.

Jon Chase
When you put it around twice it exerts twice the amount of force.  Yeah.  When you work with it around three times, it’s three times the amount of force.  So for one pull it feels like she’s pulling three times as strong.  If you needed to lift a heavy weight, say you’re resting up there and trying to pull up a man out of the river, you wouldn’t just put this up there and pull him out like this, you can wrap it around something else, wrap it around again, and when you pull it, it should be a bit less.

Student
Yeah!

Jon Chase
And that’s street science. 

(applause)

Thank you for taking your time out, thank you for indulging in a little street science and I hope you lot can just take it on more.

 

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