Category Archives: More Connections

Wicked Science

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Bright, swirling smoke in shades of neon pink and electric green forms bold, energetic shapes, creating a striking abstract background with vibrant colors.

Calling all citizens of Oz and abroad! You are cordially invited to enroll in Shiz University’s elite sorcery class to learn the science behind the magic. That’s right…we’re off to see the science!

The Cotsen Children’s Library, Department of Chemistry, and Science Outreach at Princeton University were delighted to present a morning of hands-on activity tables, followed by a 45-minute auditorium show with plenty of glitter and gravitas!

As Ozian’s entered the event floor, they were greeted with tables staffed by graduate and undergraduate students from Science Outreach at Princeton University (who gamely showed up dressed in pink and green!).

Kids wielded static electricity wands, learned about magnetic levitation, unveiled the Grimmerie’s invisible ink, tested Glinda’s bubble travel potion, and examined the pH levels of popular potions.

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There was also a yellow brick road magnet game table, and, just in case you missed it in the slideshow above, a truly magnificent dry ice tabletop tornado, which Katie constructed with the help of this Steve Spangler video.

After the activity tables had been thoroughly perused, Angie Miller from the Department of Chemistry invited students to attend Shiz University’s very own “Potions 101” class, which was held in the Taylor Auditorium on Princeton University campus.

Angie the Amazing lead the class through the tenets of the scientific method with emerald flames, rainbow beakers, conservation of mass, water boiling at room temperature, and more! She also defied gravity with the Meissner Effect (i.e. cooling a superconductor with liquid nitrogen to levitate a magnet). My personal favorite? Candy combustion – a dramatic demonstration of what happens when potassium chlorate meets Skittles:

Of course, it wouldn’t be magic/science without things culminating in fire and explosions, so Angie ramped things up with metal salt flames and firework balloons. Katie and I both managed to get footage of the fun:

The event was absolutely wonderful, and we would like to thank Angie Miller in the Department of Chemistry, Paryn Wallace with the Science Outreach at Princeton University, and all the graduate and undergraduate students who volunteered their time to reach out to community families! We appreciate you so much!

Science Outreach at Princeton University. Back row (from left to right): John Woo, Rishika Porandla, Anushri Mahabir, Harper Vance, Nneka Onyea, Adriana Gaitan, Zaighum Nagra, Davis Hobley. Front row (from left to right): Maya Cabrera, Kelsey Campbell, Meghana Bhupat, Anna Buretta, Adrija Kundu, Tam Nguyen

Sneak Peek: Wicked Science

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We’re off to see the Wizard on a yellow brick road that also…wait for it…defies gravity, thanks to the magic of science and magnets!

This weekend, we’re hosting Wicked Science, a thrillifying event in collaboration with Science Outreach at Princeton University and the Department of Chemistry. In addition to a 45 minutes auditorium show, the event features hands-on tables staffed by Princeton University undergraduate and graduate students. The cool golden magnet tiles you see above are part of a game called Kollide (ages 8+, retails for $15).

To play the game, you arrange a rope in a circle and divide the 20 magnets evenly amongst the players (you can have up to four players at a time). Then each player takes a turn placing a magnet in the circle. As you can guess, the more magnets in the circle, the more they get attracted to one another and start scooting, twisting, and snapping together. If that happens, you pick up the bundle of snapped magnets and your turn is over. The first player to get rid of all their magnets without any magnets clumping together wins!

It’s super fun, especially when the magnets start to threateningly wiggle and move as you try to place them, then suddenly snap together. It’s like magic!

Smaug Gigantus

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Photo by Shivanparusnath. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

What do you get when science and Tolkien unite? Absolutely amazing nods to a titan of the fantasy world! The handsome reptile you see above might not have heaps of gold to protect, but it did capture the imagination of scientist Ed Stanley, who named it Smaug Gigantus after the famous literary dragon in The Hobbit.

This giant girdled lizard can be found in South Africa, dwelling in the Drakensberg mountain range. It has tough upper armor and a weaker underbelly, not unlike Smaug himself. You can read a bit more about it here.

Fascinated, Katie and I took to the interwebs to see how many more scientists were Tolkien fans. As it turns out, quite a lot!

Image source: Orchid Roots

This is the Dracula smaug orchid, discovered by Mario Portilla in Ecuador. And just in case you are wondering, “Dracula” is not a second literary reference. Dracula translates into “little dragon,” matching the appearance of the various orchids in this genus. You can read more about them here.

The adventure doesn’t stop there. In Tolkien Gateway, we found a massive listings of wasps, plants, moths, mammals, beetles, and more! Behold the Gollum shark!

Slender smoothhound, Gollum attenuatus (Garrick, 1954), collected 18 December 1953, Off Kahu Rocks, Wairarapa, New Zealand. CC BY 4.0. Te Papa (P.001509). Original image from the Museum of New Zealand

And the hairy-footed moss forest bat, otherwise known as the Syconycteris hobbit!

Image source: Zoo Chat

Or how about the Myloplus sauron, a close relative of the piranha? You can read a little more about the discovery and naming of the fish here!

Image source: Wikipedia

The full Tolkien Gateway list can be found here, and we invite you to spend a happy afternoon conducting image searches of the various species. Don’t miss the Spaeleoleptes gimli spider! And if you’d like some further fun reading, look no further than this Mental Floss post! And hats off to Pensoft blog for the absolute best blog title (and awesome photos of the Idiopyrgus eowynae and Idiopyrgus meriadoci).