Chemistry at Home: Lifesavers in the Dark

Show Notes

Bonus Episode: Chemistry at Home 13

Here's another bonus episode dedicated to teaching a specific chemistry experiment you can do at home. This month, we see what happens when we crack Lifesaver mints in the dark. Trust us, it should raise your eyebrows.

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What is Chemistry For Your Life?

A podcast that helps you understand the fascinating chemistry hidden in your everyday life.

Have you ever wondered why onions make you cry? Or how soap gets your hands clean? What really is margarine, or why do trees change colors in the fall? Melissa is a chemist, and to answer these questions she started a podcast, called Chemistry for your life!

In each episode Melissa explains the chemistry behind one of life’s mysteries to Jam, who is definitely not a chemist, but she explains it in a way that is easy to understand, and totally fascinating.

If you’re someone who loves learning new things, or who wonders about the way the world works, then give us a listen.

Melissa: 00:09

Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: 00:11

I'm Jam.

Melissa: 00:11

And I'm a chemist.

Jam: 00:13

And I'm not.

Melissa: 00:13

And welcome to chemistry for your life.

Jam: 00:15

The podcast helps you understand and do chemistry At home, in your daily life, once a month.

Melissa: 00:21

Woo. I love this one. It's always one of my favorite ones to record. It's so fun. It just feels like Lighthearted.

Melissa: 00:28

You know?

Jam: 00:28

And yes. And this one was kinda crazy.

Melissa: 00:30

This one was kinda crazy. It was so fun. I also did it.

Jam: 00:33

Is It was one of the shortest and easiest ones to do and one of the most surprising.

Melissa: 00:40

Yeah. Okay, Jam. So tell me what you did.

Jam: 00:44

Okay. So this strange woman dropped off a bag of Lifesavers Winto green

Melissa: 00:51

That was me.

Jam: 00:51

Without any explanation. Just kidding. Yeah. It was Melissa. And I was instructed to take these, mints.

Jam: 01:00

They have to specifically be lifesaver's window green. Right?

Melissa: 01:03

I'm pretty sure they may work for something else that has we'll talk about it later, but we know for sure Winto Green works.

Jam: 01:10

Okay. And, yep, you're hearing us right, went o green. Ask glass savers about whatever the heck that means.

Melissa: 01:17

Yeah. Why? I don't know.

Jam: 01:19

So I took those, Took them out of their wrapper, went to a dark room, which in my case, one of these ones with our bathroom, and took some pliers. Mhmm. Got the camera all set up. Took me a few tries. Just crushed one of the lifesavers Really hard with the pliers all at once.

Melissa: 01:44

Right. So

Jam: 01:44

it'd be like a very specific sudden, Very fast crack to it. And on the camera, I could see it was kinda hard for me to watch it and do it at the same time. But when I play it back, I guess the a a flash of blue light.

Melissa: 02:02

Yeah.

Jam: 02:03

Just just sudden like, almost like it's like a little spark.

Melissa: 02:06

Quick.

Jam: 02:06

Very quick. When I crushed it. So, yeah, 22 of the takes I did, show it. 1 of them is kinda better than the other, but, We'll see how I'll try to see if I can enhance it at all a little bit on my computer whenever I share the video, but that was it. Yeah.

Jam: 02:24

That was basically it. Oh, yeah. And lifesaver went everywhere. Little shards of lifesaver wood did go everywhere.

Melissa: 02:30

Yeah. Probably do it in your sink or something?

Jam: 02:33

Yeah.

Melissa: 02:34

Or in, like, a buck over a bucket or something.

Jam: 02:37

And I thought, like, if you're dealing with a kid or something, maybe have some goggles or glasses or whatever.

Melissa: 02:43

Maybe so. Yeah.

Jam: 02:44

But I also thought, well, if you could just snap it in half or something Mhmm. I wonder if that would help Instead of it exploding everywhere?

Melissa: 02:51

Well, I've also heard you can see it if you do it in the mirror and you bite down on it.

Jam: 02:57

Oh, okay.

Melissa: 02:58

But that sounded like it would feel weird on my teeth. Mhmm. And I didn't wanna do that, so that's why we did pliers instead.

Jam: 03:04

Yeah. Here for that. I don't really wanna be jumping on something like a hard candy like that. Yeah. That's really meant to just be savored.

Melissa: 03:11

Yeah. Savored. So I was so excited about this experiment that I also did it. Uh-huh. But when I was the one breaking it, I couldn't see it.

Melissa: 03:21

But I switched places with my husband, and he did it. Uh-huh. And then I could see it really well, and I was so excited. And he was excited when I was doing. So, yeah, It might be better to have a partner.

Melissa: 03:31

If you're doing this with your kids, you can be the one that breaks it and then let maybe let them try. Safety goggles is probably a good idea for a kid, for sure. So do you wanna know the science behind what happened?

Jam: 03:42

Yes, please. I would love to.

Melissa: 03:43

Okay. So, normally, you can't see it, but we've talked about a lot That when energy is put into something, it is usually then reemitted. Mhmm.

Jam: 03:55

You

Melissa: 03:55

know, stuff absorbs and reemits energy a lot.

Jam: 03:58

Yeah.

Melissa: 03:59

So pretty much what you're seeing is when you crush hard candy, and this is true for almost any hard candy according to, Oh, I do wanna give credit to to this institution. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Okay. They were the one who had a handout about this and explained what was going on. So I knew about this phenomena, but I didn't know the chemistry behind So we'll link to them in our show notes as well.

Jam: 04:27

Got it.

Melissa: 04:27

So the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry put this out, and They said that, actually, most candy, when you chomp down on it

Jam: 04:37

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:37

Or when you crush it, it emits UV light.

Jam: 04:40

Okay.

Melissa: 04:41

But we can't see UV light. Right. But there is an ingredient in window green mints Specifically, I think it's methyl salicylate Uh-huh. That gives that minty flavor that will absorb that UV energy and then reemit it again

Jam: 05:01

Okay.

Melissa: 05:02

As visible light.

Jam: 05:04

Interesting.

Melissa: 05:04

So to break it down even further, you are basically seeing the energy you put in

Jam: 05:11

Mhmm.

Melissa: 05:12

Come out as light.

Jam: 05:13

Wow. So if we could see UV light, we would be seeing this on other things too.

Melissa: 05:18

Yes.

Jam: 05:18

But because we can't, it It has to be a specific kind of candy Yes. That has that ability to absorb that UV and rim it as visible light.

Melissa: 05:29

Yes.

Jam: 05:29

Wow. That's weird.

Melissa: 05:31

It is really weird.

Jam: 05:32

Yeah. It'd be crazy if we could see UV, and we'd probably see all kinds of things that we can't.

Melissa: 05:37

Think about that all the time. Especially when we did the episode about sunglasses, and there was that that Material that could be used

Jam: 05:46

Oh, yeah.

Melissa: 05:46

That can be seen through invisible light, but is solid in UV light

Jam: 05:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 05:52

So weird.

Jam: 05:52

Right. I guess that's kind of one of the benefits then of us not

Melissa: 05:56

That's true.

Jam: 05:57

Being able to see like, if we depended on seeing UV, and we All these glasses we have that help block it would not be good in that case, I guess.

Melissa: 06:04

That's true. Yeah. That'd be really weird. How could we see UV and visible together? It would be Crazy.

Jam: 06:09

Yeah. That would be.

Melissa: 06:11

Anyway, that's off track a little bit. So, that's that's the breakdown. I don't think when you're talking to your kids, unless they're much older, You will need to talk to them about that level.

Jam: 06:22

Okay.

Melissa: 06:23

But what I would do if I was doing this with a kid So I would ask them, what do you think is gonna happen when I break this lifesaver? Which seems kind of like a silly question to them. They're probably gonna be like, It'll get smaller or something. You know? Yeah.

Melissa: 06:37

Yeah. But have them predict what's gonna happen because then they'll be invested in the result. And then you can do this either way. You can either break the lifesaver in the daylight first and ask them to describe what happened, and they'll say It got smaller or something along those lines. You know?

Melissa: 06:56

Uh-huh. Or you can break it in the dark room first. Either way, that's fine. If you do it in the daylight first and ask them to describe what happened and then ask them, do you think it would be different in the dark? Mhmm.

Melissa: 07:09

Let's try it out. And take them into the dark room, like the bathroom or whatever. Turn the lights off and do the same thing.

Jam: 07:15

Uh-huh.

Melissa: 07:16

And then they should see the Spark, they'll be, I think, really excited. We were really excited when we're adults. So they'll see the spark, and they will probably get pretty excited. And you can ask them what was different about that. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 07:31

You can ask them why they think there's a spark, And you should encourage them to make guesses because that's the the scientific mindset that I always talk about That kids should be able to look at something and make observations and then use their observations to come to a conclusion. It doesn't always have to be right. Uh-huh. In science, we're not always right.

Jam: 07:53

Right.

Melissa: 07:54

But they can at least try to practice giving answers, and Then they can also if it they're not right, they can learn that it's okay to be wrong. You know? Yeah.

Jam: 08:02

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 08:03

I wish some of my students in class would be willing to take that risk at making some guesses even if they might be wrong.

Jam: 08:08

Right.

Melissa: 08:09

So those are good qualities to give your kids or help them practice at an early age. After they've made some of those guesses, you can give them a really simplified explanation. Like, there's a special ingredient in this kind of candy that lets us See the energy that's being let off or something like that. If you do it the other way or if you wanna go back out into the daylight and crush The candy again.

Jam: 08:36

Mhmm.

Melissa: 08:36

You can ask them if they think the spark is still happening and we just can't see it or what. That would be another good explanation help them think about how maybe there are some things going on that we can't always see. So that's another angle you can take. Another angle you can take is breaking other candy and just seeing if what, if anything, lets off that same kind of spark of light.

Jam: 09:02

Right. Right.

Melissa: 09:03

And have your kids maybe make guesses and maybe do something different like a peppermint first and then do the lifesaver.

Jam: 09:10

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 09:11

So So there's a lot of ways you can set this up to ask them questions. And if you're having trouble, if they're having a hard time grasping The concept of, oh, okay. We're gonna see the energy that we put in being let off as light. Uh-huh. A good thing you can reference back to is a flashlight.

Melissa: 09:32

So, really, what's happening when you turn on a flashlight is we're seeing the energy that we're putting in from the batteries.

Jam: 09:39

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 09:40

So you're doing the same thing. You've got a little wrench or some pliers or whatever, and that's the energy, and the spark of light is us seeing the energy with our eyes.

Jam: 09:49

Right. Right.

Melissa: 09:51

So those are some suggestions I have to make this more interactive or to practice growing some of that Scientific mindset or that scientific curiosity in your kids, but, really, this is just a cool, fun experiment.

Jam: 10:07

Yeah. Definitely cool. And I wonder you could even try, like, with other lifesaver mints and just see if it is only that one or not. But Yeah. When you're doing out the candies too because we don't even know that.

Jam: 10:17

We didn't we just tried the wintergreen ones.

Melissa: 10:19

Yeah. You can maybe even Google you do your own true experiment and Google Candies with methyl salicylate in them or whatever that special ingredient is. I think it's methyl salicylate. And just buy a bunch of different candies and crush them and see which one Bark. You know?

Melissa: 10:33

Yeah. So that could be really fun.

Jam: 10:35

Dude, yeah, this one was really fun. I liked it.

Melissa: 10:38

And easy. Yes. It cost me $2 to get mints for all of us to use. Even our friend, Leslie, was over. She took some too.

Melissa: 10:51

So I love this experiment. I think it's a really fun one. It does not matter how old you are. It's just cool. Well, anyway, thanks, Jan.

Melissa: 10:59

This was really fun, and I would not have done it without having to give you an experiment to do. So thanks for Giving me the joy of a late night chemistry experiment.

Jam: 11:08

Anytime. And if you guys haven't already, check out our, Instagram TV And the video of me doing the experiment on our different social media channels so you can see what it looks like, but then definitely try it yourself.

Melissa: 11:20

Oh, definitely.

Jam: 11:23

This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Clooney and Jam Robinson. And we'd like to give a special thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.