Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Techhead]

Madness!

And by the way, I decided to go for hurting-other-peoples-eyes potential on the avatar.

More accurate.

But if you want more cool science stuff, here's a more real looking one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4zd4Qpsbs8

Thats awesome. I know why it works. It has to do with corn syrup's high viscosity and laminar flow.

Also, the ferro-fluid video has a link to a website describing how it was done.
http://www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/spiral/

[JoshuaFH]

This one isn't a science trick, but I really like cool stuff in nature:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWzDlRvv1M&feature=related

[Captain Hat]

Uh, if you've got tape in a vacuum and have a motor unwind it fast enough, it produces really strong X-Rays

[Jualin]

Touchable holograms. Not quite up to Star Trek standards, but hey, its a start.

Blue M&Ms have unique health benefits, new report states.

E. Coli does long division.

[Virex]

To me that ferrofluid film doesn't look too perfect. You're dealing with a fluid that orients itself towards a powerfull magnetic field and the magnetic field needed to do the tricks shown is so powerfull that there are no real natural causes for disturbance that one would notice. Combine that witht he fact that it's quite possible to precisely controll the shape of a magnetic field and I'd be more surprised if there was a notable disturbance.

[shadow_archmagi]

As someone who knows nothing about ferrofluids, I have to ask

"Is this something I set up in the basement on a reasonable budget and in such a way that it'll impress friends?"

[Osmosis Jones]

As someone who has made ferrofluids, yes it's piss easy, and dirt cheap.

All you need are iron filings (finer the better), detergent and water. A common bar magnet (like in high school science class) will get some nice peaks, but for best results use a rare earth magnet (you can get them for under a dollar online if you look around).

Some advice though; the potential for mess is high. Once you make the stuff, keep it sealed in its jar.
We had a high school kid come in on the uni open day, open the jar, and then put a rare earth magnet directly over it to try and get some pretty shapes.

It looked like an alien movie as a big black blob lunged towards his hand...

[ein]

As someone who has made ferrofluids, yes it's piss easy, and dirt cheap.

All you need are iron filings (finer the better), detergent and water. A common bar magnet (like in high school science class) will get some nice peaks, but for best results use a rare earth magnet (you can get them for under a dollar online if you look around).

Some advice though; the potential for mess is high. Once you make the stuff, keep it sealed in its jar.
We had a high school kid come in on the uni open day, open the jar, and then put a rare earth magnet directly over it to try and get some pretty shapes.

It looked like an alien movie as a big black blob lunged towards his hand...

Epic win.
What would happen if I attached a magnet to one of my friends, then tossed a bucket of this stuff at them?

[userpay]

As someone who has made ferrofluids, yes it's piss easy, and dirt cheap.

All you need are iron filings (finer the better), detergent and water. A common bar magnet (like in high school science class) will get some nice peaks, but for best results use a rare earth magnet (you can get them for under a dollar online if you look around).

Some advice though; the potential for mess is high. Once you make the stuff, keep it sealed in its jar.
We had a high school kid come in on the uni open day, open the jar, and then put a rare earth magnet directly over it to try and get some pretty shapes.

It looked like an alien movie as a big black blob lunged towards his hand...

Epic win.
What would happen if I attached a magnet to one of my friends, then tossed a bucket of this stuff at them?

Oh great, you make me want to do that now. It would be cool if someone could find (or make) a video of something like this happening.

[Muz]

I dunno, I see so many cool things in life that that stuff seems pretty darn boring Electrical engineering is awesome.. I think a lot of you guys would take for granted most of the cool stuff that comes from it, but yeah, I don't think there's that much cool stuff that people aren't used to. I'm still amazed by LCD screens and MP3.

[LegoLord]

Is it possible to chemically separate ferrofluids in your own basement? (safely)

[Osmosis Jones]

Seperate? If you mean make, then yeah, but if you want to seperate them, the only thing I can think you mean is to extract the iron from the water?


A quick note on making ferrofluids;

When I made it, we used iron nanoparticles, and used the detergent (it wasn't a regular dishwashing liquid, but I see no reason why that shouldn't work) to aid in the suspension.

I believe you should be able to get the same results with sufficiently fine iron filings (i.e. it should feel like dust, not gritty, crank out a mortar and pestle if it's too rough). I made these things in first year, so I'm a little hazy, but from memory ferrofluids were discovered when someone spilt iron powder while cleaning up a workbench, so it shouldn't be too hard :p