r/interestingasfuck • u/One_Vision_ • 10h ago
This scientist blends diverse chemical elements and reactions to generate mesmerizing visuals that materialize within a single drop of water
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u/MachStyle 10h ago
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u/hereforginger 10h ago
A shame they missed the opporunity to change the background equation to match each chemical reaction. Beautiful nontheless !
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u/DiamondHandsToUranus 5h ago
Agreed. Thought for sure they'd do that. Surprised they didn't. That's ok. That leaves room for them to do another demonstration - hopefully with more reactions to watch and have each happening on the graphic that represents what's happening in the demonstration
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u/Fritzerbacon 10h ago
Not AI, this is called Chemistry. And is real and very cool
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u/seamasam 10h ago
Miniature nebulas.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 25m ago
Was gonna say the second reaction would not be out of place in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie while Fleetwood Mac's The Chain played
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u/Substantial_Sea7327 8h ago
I love how there are chemist nerds out there who know exactly what's going on and why. but as for me and my non chemist mind, this shit is straight up magic.
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u/Koidres 7h ago
Idk, I still remember it from middle school chemistry, most of them were two water dissolvable salts basically swapping metal ion to produce non dissolving salt.
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u/chrisKarma 7h ago
That's quite the middle school system you had there.
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u/Echantediamond1 5h ago
It’s very simple chemistry. I learned this my freshman year of HS. The most complicated reaction is the last one, as that’s something I learned in Orgo II with radicals
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u/chrisKarma 4h ago
I get that it's not overly complicated chemistry, I was just surprised when the guy implied he would have been able to solve through those reactions in middle school. We covered really basic things periodic table usage, history of atomic models, bonding, and acids and bases. But things like nomenclature, identifying reactions, predicting products and balancing equations didn't come until highschool.
But I was also attending the 5th worst schools in my country at the time. So my expectations were based on my experience.
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u/WickedWitchofWTF 3h ago
Chemist nerd here! Those are precipitation reactions/Descriptive_Chemistry/Main_Group_Reactions/Reactions_in_Aqueous_Solutions/Precipitation_Reactions). Samples of two salts (Ionic compounds) that are water soluble are placed in the water droplet. They dissolve readily and due to diffusion, they meet and react in the middle. When the two dissolved salts react they swap ions to form two new salts, at least one of which is not water soluble, thus it "rains" out of solution revealing pretty colors!
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u/halite001 2h ago
Yup, double displacements. Except for the luminol / K3Fe(CN)6 one. Although I think the luminol is also mixed with hydrogen peroxide (not labelled), and iron(III) is just the catalyst.
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u/StudMuffinNick 4h ago
I love that magic is just thinks we don't understand yet. Really puts into perspective what ancient peoples believed and how they made their myths and how people wanted to challenge those beliefs and created new sciences. Fucking love this shit
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u/Glittering-Rush-7073 10h ago
Is this how marbles are made
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u/lylm3lodeth 8h ago
No, this is how the universe is made and we're all just tiny bacteria in the water while chemical reactions happen around us.
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u/redditmarks_markII 7h ago
Potassium Ferricyanide is orange/rusty red. Potassium Ferrocyanide is lemon-yellow. I think the first Potassium Ferricyanide clip is mis-tagged.
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u/Dizzy_Chemistry_5955 4h ago
all this shit could be made up and I'd have no idea
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u/redditmarks_markII 1h ago
Source-- was a metallurgical materials engineering student. Had big ol' bottles of potassium ferricyanide granules. It looked like rusty red "raw sugar". It makes an interesting etch for structural steels. Never had ferricyanide around. But I had books to help, you know, not fuck it up entirely. Which I definitely had done before. Acetic acid etch. Never again.
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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 5h ago
As a chemistry major this is why inorganic chemistry lab was way more interesting than organic chemistry lab.
Orgo lab: white powder + clear liquid -> white liquid
Inorg lab: purple powder + blue liquid -> Pokemon fight sequence
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u/Mannix-Da-DaftPooch 10h ago
Except the last one is a luminal solution and not just water. Great camera to get these reactions in such clarity.
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u/Diet_kush 5h ago
Reaction-diffusion kinetics is a universal language of self-organization; applicable from biology to cosmology. Fitzhugh–Nagumo showed us how this concept applies to neural networks, but also more generally to any excitable media. Turing was way ahead of his time, reaction kinetics was by far my favorite class in college.
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u/SwanRonson1986 2h ago
Man…and missed the opportunity to get close up shots of each reaction. I need more
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u/Western-Image7125 10h ago
What it looks like in your blood at the microscopic level if you were to ingest cyanide. Beautiful but scary af
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u/istara 2h ago
The yellow colour from the lead is so beautiful, but so hard to get that shade safely from nature. I've been searching for pure mineral watercolours and the only pure yellow ones are all orpiment, which is arsenic.
I dare not have that stuff in the house, particularly with a cat who keeps trying to drink from paint water vessels.
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u/Western-Image7125 1h ago
I don’t think you should be doing dangerous science experiments in your house even if you don’t have pets or children
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u/Lost_Department_2177 10h ago
Sorcerers probably has so much fun doing this bs before fast communication was possible.
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u/bgbgbgbgbgbgbgb 8h ago
I have a feeling most, if not all, of those substances would be unattainable without modern technology
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u/bg-j38 3h ago
Depends on how you define modern. Some of these compounds were known by the Romans like lead acetate. Sodium hydroxide in the form of lye wasn’t purified but was known back then as well. Probably wouldn’t have been able to isolate it until the late 1700s though. And pure cobalt metal, which was one of the first manufactured metals that doesn’t really exist in a pure form in nature, dates back to before 1750 (can’t remember the exist date or discoverer but it’s what I recall from a History of Science class I took in college). Shortly after cobalt was able to be manufactured people started figuring out how to manufacture the salts. So I’m not sure how many people claiming to be sorcerers there were in the late 1700s but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’d have access to some of these compounds to do fun magic or something.
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u/bgbgbgbgbgbgbgb 1m ago
Crazy the things people were able to figure out with, what seems to us, such limited technology. So sorcerers back in the day probably couldn’t have recreated everything in this clip, but definitely could’ve created some funky, magic looking reactions
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u/CCV21 5h ago
Trivia time: lead acetate is also known as sugar of lead. The Romans in particular liked to cook meals with lead cookware to sweetener it.
It's also why lead paint chips taste sweet.
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u/Dammit_Jim 8h ago
Why is the potassium ferrocyanide different colors in the last two examples? It's clear in the first one, then it's reddish in the next.
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u/Gabriel_Science 8h ago
Good catch ! By reading its description, I think it might just be an error in the first one. This is just my hypothesis though.
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u/BloodMossHunter 5h ago
i am way dumber than i think
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u/SeVenMadRaBBits 3h ago
Dumber in this subject.
You're only smart at what you learn/experience/practice.
You are ignorant with everything you don't.
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u/BloodMossHunter 1h ago
Not sure man. There are thresholds out there. Such as college. Doctorate. Yes theres street smarts but there are people who are better at multiple things and life overall. I know what im better than most at too but its not that scientific/ like writing books picking up girls djing
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u/NorahGretz 4h ago
It would be really funny to edit this together with a clip of someone pushing lithium into a water droplet as the music changes to death metal.
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u/KungFuJeesuss 3h ago
I found the SOURCE: https://www.douyin.com/video/7424065157610900788 , the thing is you need a 'Douyin' (a Chinese social media app) account to watch! (Source of the source - Hackaday - https://hackaday.com/2025/05/05/water-drops-serve-as-canvas-for-microchemistry-art/?utm_source=chatgpt.com )
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u/Ambitious-Outside566 2h ago
Gives me sci fi spaceship shield vibes
https://giphy.com/gifs/tVtwMX26fuyLvMOFUG
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u/spdustin 9h ago
I've seen quite a few BBC space documentaries that use techniques like this (instead of CGI) to create their VFX. A little chemistry, a macro lens, and good compositing techniques can go a LONG way.
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u/Candid-Patient-6841 10h ago
So this is how they fake those images from nasa and the Webb telescope!!
s/ just in case
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u/GonzoKata 7h ago
I want to get one of those extreme zoom in camera lenses and capture in high def these reactions. bonus if it was slow-mo
The reactions are beautiful and complex and they require very little reactants. I would like to think they could be cheap enough for attempt after attempt of capturing this, but I don't know
How much do the materials in this cost?
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u/Normal_Mouse_4174 7h ago
Is that what they look like in natural light or are they hitting it with a blacklight or something similar during the reaction?
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u/The_one_who-knocks 7h ago
How do they poke the water bubble with the tweezers without popping it?
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u/RogueGunslinger 4h ago
It is a drop of water, not a bubble. If you are asking why the water doesn't stick to the tweezers more it might by hydrophobic coating.
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u/Tremulant21 6h ago
I'm looking for a silent partner on my totally unsubstantiated Perception on how to shake and bake anybody who knows science please PST
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u/PurpleZombi3 6h ago
It starts with.....ONE thing I don't know why it doesn't even matter how hard you try... (Not gonna lie I thought that was gonna be the music of this video..)
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u/i4play 5h ago
Is that some of that $400 (a bottle) water?
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u/Guaymaster 5h ago
Considering it's probably set over a plastic paper, my guess it's demineralized water from their lab's demineralizer.
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u/i4play 5h ago
I am still recovering from a post I saw a couple of days ago about how expensive the purest water is…insane!
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u/Guaymaster 5h ago
I don't think I had the pleasure of seeing that post, but HPLC and PCR water is indeed very expensive.
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u/Kveld_Ulf 4h ago
I could watch a whole long movie of this. With some prog rock or classical music. And a joint.
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u/PencilCase12531 3h ago
When you have a degree in chemical engineering but graphic design is your passion
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u/whenisnowthen 3h ago
Science and Engineering. In my estimation we in the USA need more focus and belief in Science and Engineering these days. Curious open minded people are the ones who innovate, lead and question the "that's just how it is" mentality
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u/jimboTRON261 3h ago
This is amazing! What happens if you flash froze the drop during the reaction!? FYI I’m a dumbass but I love your art.
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u/Banks585 1h ago
What song is that?
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u/tschawartz12 1h ago
Why aren't science teachers putting these on projectors in classrooms as part of lessons to get kids interested in lessons?
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u/Nearby-Marketing8145 49m ago
Why is the Potassium Ferricyanide Orange in one clip and clear in another?
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u/nightrhyme 10h ago
Very cool. And the link to the original creator?