This is our one day set aside to pack up before heading out in the morning tomorrow. My list is growing longer with each thing I check off of it. How is that possible?
In the meantime, Finnian has decided that this is the best moment to start asking important questions like, "what is the colour of caffeine?" and "why does bees wax burn longer than other types of wax?". Yes, these are very important questions to be answered (if only I knew the answers!) but we will have 24 hours in a car to thoroughly explore the physical properties of caffeine. Today, however, we have: laundry, yarn labeling and shipping, fleece, clothes and spinning supplies packing, cleaning up the basement, post office run, and.....
If questions are your thing right now, I urge you to check out this blog that I have been enjoying immensely since I discovered it a couple of months ago. He always gives me something to think about while I check things off my list.
Caffeine.. interesting stuff.
ReplyDeletelike nicotine, it's a poison..
(but you need to ingest a lot to kill you! --but not an un-imagable large quanity (3 quarts of Manhattan special soda, ingested in less than 2 hours has enough caffeine to kill about 50% of the population!)--Manhattan special has more caffeine than Jolt, and red bull even (you need to drink about 1.5 gallons of those beverages (in less than 2 hours) to reach the 50% toxicity rate.
(my son was a big fan of Manhattan special soda (i like it too!) and it was his drug of choice for late night cramming sessions!)
in a purified, dried state, its a white powder, that is soluable in water and alcohol..
(the 3 universal solvents are water, alcohol and oil.
Many, many things are soluble in one, some in 2, a few in 3!--
(my son has done photo essays on how soluble gummy bears are in water/alcohol and oil.. and has included gummy bears in air (as a control)and also tried salt water(vs plain water), and vinegar (an acid) and water with baking soda (a base)..
(and his poor kids just wanted to eat gummy bears, not watch them change!)
(some things are rather inert, (and don;t dissolve in anything!)
Caffeine has a bitter taste (and contribute to the bitter taste of coffee)
now as for bees wax..
well what is burning? --I mean its seems simple enough, but what is fire? is it a thing? or is it a process (like say the bubbles of boiling water?)can things burn with out a flame?
Bees wax is a complex hydro carbon.. and burning? (what is required to burn something? what happens to the things you burn?
(do they just dissappear? or do they change?
and how do they change, and what do they change into?
and is the change temperature dependent? (and is it temperature sensitive?) (does bees wax burn faster if it burns hotter? and how do you measure the heat of flame? )
(how about bees wax? is it soluble in water?
or in alcohol?
or in oil?
or in an acid?
or in an base?
does bees wax train its ability to burn if it is dissolved in these materials?
does it burn faster? or slower?
Maybe i'll send you a long email on fun kitchen chemistry stuff..
many of the experiments are messy.. but messy can be fun too..
good questions!