Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Holiday magic show reveals the science behind the ‘magic’ of chemistry

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A clear liquid is added to another clear liquid and the mixture turns pink. A glass rod touches a cotton ball and the cotton ball “disappears” in a burst of flame.

Is it magic, or is it chemistry?

It’s … chemistry!

If you want to see why, don’t miss the Holiday Magic Show at the University of Illinois chemistry department this December.

Produced by chemistry teaching faculty and students, the show demonstrates and explains many principles of chemistry, including kinetics, thermodynamics, gas laws and atomic theory.

See what happens to a pickle subjected to high voltage. Discover why helium gas and not hydrogen gas is used in party balloons. Learn about all of this, and gunpowder, liquid nitrogen and more.

The show, which is free and open to the public, will include about 25 demonstrations that will explain the science behind the “magic” of chemistry.

The show will be at 100 Noyes Lab, 505 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana. Show times are Dec. 10 (Wednesday), at 7 p.m. and Dec. 14 (Sunday), at 2 p.m.

For more information, contact Don DeCoste: decoste@illinois.edu.

Read Next

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010