The BYU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry celebrated National Chemistry Week with magic shows and a seminar under the theme "Picture Perfect Chemistry."
Jeff Macedone is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and is the main organizer of the celebrations. According to Macedone, BYU has celebrated National Chemistry Week for at least 20 years.
The magic shows were performed by several professors in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. These professors also relied on students who work in the lab to set up the demonstrations for the magic shows and help the shows run smoothly.
Lauren Stanley and Ruth Roth both helped with several shows during the week. Roth shared that it sometimes felt chaotic, but her understanding of chemistry improved as she learned how to do over 150 different demonstrations.
“I love the excitement of helping with the magic shows … the kids go crazy, the families go crazy, and it’s just such a fun way to be able to share chemistry with the community,” Stanley said.
One of the demonstrations was a reaction with hydrogen peroxide and alcohol, which were lit on fire. Potassium permanganate was then added to increase the speed of the reaction and produced a large purple flame.
Another demonstration involved comparing the way that hydrogen and ethane burn. The hydrogen explosion was slower and brighter, whereas the ethane explosion was smaller and louder.
By adding dry ice to a pH indicator, what was once a purple liquid slowly turned bright yellow. The carbon dioxide made the liquid more acidic, and adding a strong base turned it back to purple.
There were several more demonstrations as well, including burning magnesium to produce a very bright white light, shrinking balloons with liquid nitrogen and the finale of exploding a “Y” of balloons filled with ethane and hydrogen.
In addition to the magic shows, a seminar was held where professors shared their perspective on what “picture perfect chemistry” meant to them.
Steve Wood, a BYU professor in the chemistry department, shared famous chemistry images including the first x-ray ever taken and the first x-ray image of crystalline DNA that assisted in discovering the structure of DNA.
Another professor, Stacey Smith, shared two diffraction images of crystals, explaining why they are images of perfection in her eyes. Smith said that the first image was diffraction from a perfect crystal that only diffracts x-rays in a few specific directions. The second image Smith showed was diffraction from a ‘perfect powder,' where the combination of crystal lattices diffract x-rays in all directions evenly.
“With the little caveat at the end that, just like people, crystals are never really perfect, but they’re often good enough,” Smith said.
Dave Dearden also teaches for the chemistry department and shared how scientists have learned to study chemistry from long distances using pictures of space. He explained that different elements will reflect light differently, and this has allowed scientists to discover the chemical makeup of stellar bodies that are thousands of light years away.
Professor Jeremy Johnson discussed his research in a specific frequency of light called terahertz frequency, which he and students in his lab have used to identify the different regions of certain materials.
J. C. Price from the department also shared how he used chemistry to make images of where chemicals and biological molecules are in body tissues, particularly the brain.
“A picture is worth 1,000 words, and we can also take pictures using molecules instead of light, and we can learn a lot by doing that,” Price said.