He Poured Water, Oil, And Syrup Into A Glass For A Really Cool Science Experiment

• Dec 17, 2015
• by Alex Song

How many times were we forced to make assignments back in school? For those of you still in school, you can relate better than us as we reflect. The assignments that I hated would be those on which we would get graded or worse yet, we were to make something on a subject we hated. I can not think of any creative, innovative and interesting projects about Spanish or Math. I honestly can not and then to present it was a further nightmare.

I am not sure about how much you all loved science but I am a science freak. Everything related to science delights me immensely, even to the point of euphoria! Be it a simple rainbow or something epic like anti-matter, I love discovering it all. So at all our science exhibitions and fairs, I would begin preparing weeks before, racking my brains for ‘never done before’ kind of ideas. This is why I have really liked doing all sorts of experiments at home, some which angered my mother to great lengths as I would alway raid the kitchen for supplies!

There are several experiments available in your textbooks, on the Internet and elsewhere which are pretty cool to try out. I particularly like to go through video tutorials of these experiments as it leaves little room for me to make an error. This is why today I will talk about a similar video which explains a neat experiment.

In this video, the narrator tries to show us a way through which we can discover and prove the existence of density. If you ask what density means then its scientific definition is the Fahim ration between the mass of an object and its volume. To simplify it for others, it is basically a measure of the compactness of the material present within any thing. The material here refers to the atoms and molecules that are present in any matter and how closely they are packed together. This results in viscous fluids, heavier yet smaller solid objects etc.

The former is proven through this experiment. The experimenter here first takes an empty glass and placed some water in it. He added colour to the water to make it visible, I will explain later why this is a good idea. Then he took syrup and poured it in the glass with the water. For syrup you may take anything from maple syrup to honey to a viscous cough syrup. As you put the syrup into the glass you will be surprised to see how it falls right through the water present in the glass, making its way down towards the bottom of the glass. Here is settles down and forms a separate layer from the water, not mixing at all. This is because the syrup is denser than water so naturally heavier and we know heavier substances sink. Therefore the syrup settles at the very base. Next he took some oil which he poured in the same glass that now contained syrup and water. This too behaved just like the syrup had, settling right on top of the layer of water, not mixing at all. For this you should wait at least 15 minutes to slow all the water and air bubbles to settle down as they arise due to the pressure exerted by the oil as it is poured. Oil is the least dense of the other two liquids; the syrup and water, therefore it stays at the top. This is just like how we say that light objects float. So the oil stays at the top, above water which in turn is above the syrup.

If you look at the video at this point or if you look at your own experiment, if you are attempting to do it, then you will understand why we added colour to the water. Since it is transparent, you would not have been able to appreciate the three separate layers clearly as there would be no proper demarcation. But by adding a dark colour which is distinct from the colours of oil and syrup, you can easily make out the all the layers and appreciate the separation clearly.

The next thing he did was to help you understand how these densities differ between various objects. He started with a metal but which he dropped in the glass. Since the nut is denser than the top layers of oil and water, it settled at the bottom in the syrup. The next object he took was a grape. A grape being of the same density as water, settled in water, staying afloat of the syrup layer. The last was a plastic bottle cap which is the least dense and thus stays on the top layer of oil. Each object will remain in its place no matter how long you leave it. Lastly he put a piece of sponge which stayed adrift on top of all layers, staying still on up of the oil as it is less dense than all of the liquids.

While few find this experiment difficult to understand because they are unable to establish the relationship between the experiment and density but I hope this explanation helped clear things up. You can modify this according to what you want; changing liquids to see what settles below and what settles above. You can also drop various objects to get a picture of their density in relation to all these liquids.

There are several more experiments available on the internet that you may use and try for yourself. These aid in establishing a better understanding of the topic and are fun too. So let us begin discovering!