Steve Spanglers Table Tricks Guide

Table Tricks Science Experiment Guide

Cork in the Bottle

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Push the cork into the bottle.

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Put about half of the handkerchief inside of the bottle.

Turn the bottle upside down to get the cork stuck in the bottle's neck.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Empty wine bottle • Cork • Handkerchief

4 Pull the handkerchief, and the cork, out of the bottle!

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Table Trick Secrets The cork of the wine bottle is designed so that it won't go into the wine bottle without being forced. The reason it won't go in, is because of friction. The friction between the cork and the bottle must be exceeded by force. To get the cork out of the bottle, the same amount of force must be applied. But, it is impossible to apply that much force from inside the bottle. If the force necessary can't be applied from the inside, the amount of friction has to be reduced. By introducing the handkerchief to the equation, you reduce the friction between the cork and the bottle neck and apply enough force from the pulling motion to remove the cork.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Place a dollar bill on the mouth of a g l a s s s o d a b o t t l e . M r. Washington's face should be right over the hole.

Stack the quarters (six should be enough) directly over the mouth of the bottle, on top of the dollar bill.

3 Stick out your index finger, and swipe down at the dollar bill. Be careful not to hit the quarters or the bottle.

Newton’s Bottle

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Glass bottle • Dollar bill • Quarters

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

4 If you do it right, your finger should pull the dollar bill out from under the quarters, leaving them stacked atop the bottle.

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Ta k e i t f u r t h e r ! I n s t e a d o f quarters, stack a second glass soda bottle (upside down) on top of the dollar bill on the first glass soda bottle.

With the bottles balanced, grip one end of the dollar bill so that it is moderately taut. Use the index finger on your other hand to repeat the swiping motion. TADA!

Table Trick Secrets The key to the Newton's Bottle trick is inertia. Inertia is described in Sir Isaac Newton's (see where we get the name?) First Law of Motion. Inertia is the tendency for an object at rest to remain at rest until an outside force acts upon it. Inertia is important in the Newton's Bottle trick because, according to the law, the quarters and bottle (the objects) will not move unless an outside force moves them. Aside from inertia, friction also plays a factor. Thankfully, the surface of the dollar bill is smooth, and doesn't create a lot of friction against the quarters or bottle. Without a lot of friction, the dollar bill doesn't pull the quarters and bottle off of their balanced perch.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Drinking glass • Three glass bottles • Three butter knives (same size & style) • Water

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Place three glass soda bottles at an equal distance apart. They need to be close enough that the knives can reach from the bottles' mouths to the center.

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Intertwine the knives in the fashion shown in the picture, where the blade of one knife lays atop the handle of another.

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Rest the knives atop the bottles. The handle of the knives should sit on the mouths of the bottles. The knives will stay intertwined.

Set a drinking glass on top of the knives at the spot where they all intersect. The cup will sit safely.

5 Pour water into the glass, and watch as the apparatus remains steady.

Balancing Knives © 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Table Trick Secrets This appears to be complete and total magic, but the key is the point at which the knives intertwine. The blades of the butter knives are intertwined in a weave. Each knife goes underneath a second knife while going over the top of a third. This "weave' makes it so that, when pressure is applied to all three knives, force is being applied downward and upward. With the handles of the knives resting on the glasses, and the fourth glass resting at the intersecting points of the knives, balanced forces enable the full glass of water to remain stationary atop the knives.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

Marble Gravitron

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Grip the flat base of the wine glass with one hand and drop the marble in the top with the other.

Spin the glass to get the marble going around in a circle on the inside.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Marble • Wine glass

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While still spinning the glass, tilt the glass so that it is on its side. The marble is staying in the glass!

Are you still spinning the marble in the glass? Good. Turn the glass upside down

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Take It Further!

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Place the marble in the middle of your palm and put the glass over the top of the marble.

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Spin the glass like you did in the last experiment, getting the marble to spin against the inside of the glass.

Slowly tilt the glass so that it is right-side-up.

Table Trick Secrets The Marble Gravitron is a smaller version of what you can experience on the amusement park ride of the same name. The inertia of the spinning marble is a "push" force.  The glass supplies another "push" force that keeps the marble moving in a "uniform circular motion." The force of the glass is centripetal force, a force that makes a body follow a curved path. The combined forces of the spinning marble and the glass create a relative force greater than gravity.  This is a small scale artificial gravity demonstration. A real life application of this demonstration is how artificial gravity is created aboard a spacecraft.  In this instance, the rotating body is much larger (the spacecraft) and the spinning body (the astronaut) needs to go around much more slowly to recreate the feeling of gravity.   However, the same phenomenon is present as the astronaut is able to stand upright against the outside of the spacecraft. Can you think of any other real-life scenarios where this is used?

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Place the card on top of the glass. Make sure there is enough space to give one edge of the card a good flick without smacking your finger on the glass. Ouch!

Place a single coin on top of the card so that it rests over the cup's opening.

3 Flick an exposed edge of the notecard. Don't flick the card from underneath. Flick directly from the side of the card's edge.

The Coin Drop Here’s What You’ll Need... • Note card (or playing card) • Drinking glass • Assorted coins

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

4 The coin drops straight into the glass!

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Table Trick Secrets We found out that our custodian didn't really come up with the Coin Drop trick all by himself.  He admitted to us that it's just a great way of demonstrating Sir Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion. The First Law of Motion can be summed up like this: An object at rest will stay at rest unless an outside force acts upon it.   An object that is moving, will stay moving until something stops it. In the case of our Coin Drop trick, the coin is at rest while it sits on top of the card and glass.  When you flick the card out from under the coin, you enable gravity (an outside force) to act upon the coin and pull it into the glass. When the coin drops, the bottom of the glass stops the coin. That doesn't explain why the coin doesn't take off with the card though, does it? If you flicked the card right, it slides out from between the glass and coin without enough friction to pull the coin with it.

Take It Further!

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• Try challenging yourself to drop as many coins as possible into the cup using this method.   What's your record? Post it in the reviews tab above. • Does the type of coin you use matter?   Try quarters, Mexican pesos, or maybe even a silver dollar! • Is there a type of card that doesn't work?   Try flicking index cards, Pokemon cards, or whatever you can think of! • Can't get enough of experiments featuring force and motion? Learn all about force & motion with more fun experiment kits.

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Two wine glasses • Water • Toothpick

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1 Fill each glass with equal amounts of water (about half-full seems to work well).

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Do the same thing with the other wine glass. You want the tone from each glass to be the same, so you may need to adjust the water level.

Here's the fun part. Rest a toothpick on the rim of one of the glasses.

2 Wet your finger and press lightly on the rim of the glass. Rub your finger all the way around the rim without stopping. Keep going in a circular motion along the lip of the glass while maintaining the pressure to create a sound.

5 Position the second wine glass close to the first one, but not touching.

Singing Glass - Toothpick Mover

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Table Trick Secrets

6 Dip your finger in the water and make the glass without the toothpick sing, but don't take your eyes off the match. It starts moving!

There are really two parts to this activity... the singing of the wine glass and the movement of the match. Let's discuss the singing wine glass first. As you rub your finger on the rim, your finger first sticks to the glass and then slides. This stick and slide action occurs in very short lengths and produces a vibration inside the glass which in turn produces a sound. As soon as the first few vibrations are produced, the glass resonates. That means you’re causing the crystals in the glass to vibrate together and create one clear tone. You can change the pitch (highness or lowness of the sound) by adding to or subtracting from the amount of water in the glass. The volume (loud or quiet) can be changed only a little bit by increasing or decreasing the pressure from your finger. The movement of the match is caused by a sympathetic vibration. Because you added equal amounts of water, the second glass vibrates at exactly the same frequency as the first. The sound waves produced by the first glass travel in every direction. When those sound waves reach the second glass, the glass begins to vibrate as well and the match moves. Telekinesis? Nope... just some really clever science.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

Spinning Match

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Balance one nickel, on edge, upon another nickel that has been laid flat on a surface.

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Balance a match, lengthwise, on the edge of the standing nickel.

Place a clear plastic cup over the match & nickel apparatus.

Here’s What You’ll Need... 4 Blow-up and tie-off a balloon. Rub the balloon on your shirt.

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

• • • •

Clear plastic cup Matchstick Two nickels Balloon

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Place the balloon near the cup and move it around the edge

The match follows the balloon!

Table Trick Secrets You probably guessed this by now, since you rubbed the balloon against your shirt, hair, or carpet, but this experiment revolves around static electricity. When you rub the balloon on a coarse surface, you give the balloon additional electrons, generating a negative static charge. Meanwhile, the match, delicately balancing inside of the cup, has a neutral charge. When an object has a negative charge, it will repel the electrons of other objects and attract that object’s protons. When the neutrally charged object is light enough, like the match in this case, the negatively charged object will attract the lightweight object. But try attracting a match while it’s laying on a table... it doesn’t work! You need to reduce the amount of other forces acting on the match for this experiment to work, and that’s why you balance the match on the rim of a nickel. Balancing the match enables less surface area to be directly effected by friction, which enables the match to rotate more freely.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

Balancing Utensils

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Hook your fork and spoon together at their business ends. Slide the spoon into the tongs of the fork so that the first and last tongs are on one side of the spoon.  The handles of the fork and spoon should point in the same direction.

Slide the toothpick in between the second and third tongs of the fork. Try to balance the utensils on the toothpick.

3 Ta k e t h e u t e n s i l / t o o t h p i c k apparatus you have created and balance it on the edge of the glass.  Make sure that the two utensil handles are pointing back towards the glass. The toothpick will be horizontal.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • Spoon • Fork • Toothpick (squared sides works best) • Matches or lighter • Drinking glass Note: Not all silverware will work for this trick.  Make sure that you have balanced utensils.

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

4 Take it a step further!  Light both ends of the toothpick using a match.

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Table Trick Secrets This table trick uses physics and the principle of center of gravity to "defy gravity."   And since it's technically science, this is one of those times it's cool to teach your audience the tricks of the trade.  The center of gravity of an object refers to the mean point that gravity acts on an object.   In the apparatus you built with the spoon, fork, and toothpick, the center of gravity is at the point balanced on the glass. When you burn the ends of the match, you might think that the center of gravity would change.   But it doesn't!   The mass that you are burning away is trivial compared to the overall mass of the utensils.  So, despite the ends of the toothpick being burned away, the center of gravity stays at the same point.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Take the five new, dry toothpicks and bend them so that they crack as close to the middle as possible. The two sides of the cracked toothpick need to remain connected

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Next, place the toothpicks on the smooth surface (table or plate) so that they make a closed five pointed star.

Use the straw to add drop(s) of water to the middle of the formation. The goal here is to place the water so that all the broken toothpick ends get wet.

Here’s What You’ll Need... • • • •

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Five wooden toothpicks Small amount of water Straw Plate

Once the broken toothpick ends are wet, you should observe the toothpicks slowly moving into the shape of an open 5 pointed star.

Toothpick Star

© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Take It Further!

If you want to take the magic trick further with a little bit of exploration, we've got some ideas for you: • Try testing whether hot or cold water makes the shifting take place quicker or slower. • Try to find out what surface works best for the trick, like a plastic tablecloth, wooden table, countertop, etc. • Test if other liquids work better than water.  Will the caffeine in coffee make the shift hyperactive?   Or maybe milk will make it really slow.

Table Trick Secrets The toothpicks that you use are made of dried wood (usually birch, but that's beside the point).   When you break the toothpicks, you compress the wood in either end of the toothpick.   Once you place the water in the middle of the closed star formation, the dried wood begins absorbing the water, causing the wood to expand.  The absorption of the water is performed by capillary action as the capillaries within the wood pull water along the length of the toothpick. As the wood absorbs more of the water, each individual toothpick will straighten itself out.  This straightening action causes each individual broken toothpick end to push against each other.   As the toothpicks straighten and push against each other, the inside of the star opens up into the end star formation.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

The Tablecloth Trick Here’s What You’ll Need... • Tablecloth without hems • Flat tabletop with a straight edge • Dinner plates, saucers, silverware, etc. Note:  The secret to your success is to make a tablecloth without any hems. For practice purposes, cut a piece of cloth that is approximately 3 foot square. You can graduate to a larger size as you perfect your skill.

1 Spread the tablecloth out onto the tabletop with about 2 feet of the tablecloth on the table. Make sure there are no wrinkles.

2 Place the cups, plates and utensils on top of the tablecloth close to the edge of the cloth (for starters).

Experimentation with Mom's best dinnerware probably isn't a great idea. In this case, "taking it further" might get you into a world of trouble. Instead of testing out different plates, bowls, and glasses, try experimenting with different masses on the plates. Make the plate or bowl heavier by adding a piece of fruit or something with some weight. Is it easier or harder to whip off the tablecloth?

The trick is to grab the ends of the tablecloth with both hands and quickly pull the cloth straight down and away from the table.

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.

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Table Trick Secrets After you take your bows and graciously accept your standing ovation, be sure to thank Sir Isaac Newton for his help in making you an overnight success. Plain and simple, the Tablecloth Trick works because of inertia. Newton first described inertia as the tendency for an object at rest to remain at rest until a force acts upon the object. Inertia for an object in motion is the tendency for that object to remain in motion, unless a force acts upon the object. In terms of the Tablecloth Trick, inertia is important because, according to the law, the objects (the stuff on the table) will not move unless an outside force moves them. This is known as Newton's First Law of Motion. There are two different parts of this experiment to discuss - inertia and friction. Initially, all of the objects (the plate, bowl, cup, utensils) are at rest (not moving). According to Newton's First Law, objects at rest tend to stay at rest. When you pull the cloth, friction acts on the objects in the direction of the pull for a short time. The tablecloth is slippery, so these forces are small and the cloth sneaks out from underneath the objects. If you do it just right, everyone will be amazed. Next time your mom asks you to clear the table, do it with flair!

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© 2013 STEVE SPANGLER SCIENCE, INC.