SAUGUS — The Saugus Public Library got quite a show Tuesday morning when “Atomic Allen” from Mad Science stopped by to teach everyone about fire and ice.
“We’re going to have some fun with science, but I also need to make sure we stay safe. So I have some rules to keep you safe,” Atomic Allen said before listing out the listening rule, the don’t touch his stuff rule, and rule number three, have fun.
He showed the kids a quick card trick, failing to make a card disappear, to show the kids watching the difference between a magician and a scientist.
“What could I do to make this card go away?” he asked the kids.
Some yelled to throw it in the trash or rip it up, but one told him to burn it.
“Burn it? Like with fire? In a library? Sure, why not? But if I’m going to do that, I need to use a lighter, but first we have to talk about fire safety,” Atomic Allen said.
He told the kids that when it comes to lighters, they should do nothing with them and leave them for their parents or guardians to handle. He then lit the card on fire before shutting it in a metal container and asking the crowd if the fire was out.
“There are three things fire need. We call it the fire triangle,” he said.
The crowd helped him list off everything fire needs: oxygen, fuel, and heat.
Atomic Allen also took everyone through the steps of scientific theory asking them to observe, ask questions, create a hypothesis, and experiment.
The question he asked was if the card burned fast or slow. He allowed all the kids to produce an answer before showing them a piece of paper.
“Who thinks this paper is going to burn fast? Who thinks it’s going to burn slow?” he asked.
Atomic Allen then burned the paper before producing another thinner piece of paper.
“Now we can ask faster or slower,” he said.
He lit the paper on fire before it completely disappeared in a burst of flames, unlike the other paper which only lost a small corner to it.
“Where did it go? It went into the air as what?” he asked.
The kids yelled back: “Heat!”
He explained that magicians called that paper flash paper, but that scientists called it trinitrocellulose.
“Now the thing that’s interesting about trinitrocellulose is: When it starts to burn, those acids that are still in the paper break down and then give off oxygen. Fire likes oxygen so it burns a little hotter, a little faster, more chemicals break down, give off more oxygen, and it burns faster and hotter. Next thing you know it’s gone,” he said.
Atomic Allen also showed off dry ice and how it can shake a quarter due to how cold it is.
“Which takes up more space, a solid, a liquid, or gas? Gas takes up the most space,” he said. “When the dry ice changes from a solid into a gas, remember it doesn’t get wet; it’s not melting. It’s not going from a solid to a liquid. It’s going directly from a solid into a gas. It’s not evaporating… We call it sublimating. When it goes from a solid to a gas, the gas is trying to get out from underneath the quarter,” he said.
Atomic Allen showed off a few more experiments, including using the dry ice to blow bubbles over the kids and using a bucket of dry ice to spread a dense white fog over the kids.