Breaking Life Savers makes flashes of light
What you need:
- A dark room with a mirror
- Wintergreen Lifesavers
- Stand in the dark room facing the mirror. (If you don't have a mirror, get a partner and watch each other.)
- Chew a Lifesaver with your mouth open.
- Look for flashes of light.
When you crunch the candy, electrons in the sugar combine with molecules to emit light. The wintergreen oil used for flavoring makes the light more visible.*
*For more information, see "Lightning In Your Mouth" on the Exploratorium website. You can also find a complete explanation of this reaction in Sweeting, Linda M, "Light Your Candy," Chem Matters, Oct 1990, pp 10-12.
My mom likes to tell a story of doing this when she was dating my dad. By in those days 'parking' to make out was called "sparking". My mom asked if he wanted to go "sparking". Of course he was interested! They kept driving until it was "dark enough". Then she pulled out the lifesavers! He was disappointed, but they did go "sparking"!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like he ended up on the sweet end of the dating deal anyway in the end :)
ReplyDelete