List of scientific demonstrations

This is a list of scientific demonstrations used in educational demonstrations and popular science lectures.

Physics

• Balsa wood bridge — demonstrates compressive strength and tensile strength, teaches engineering thinking
• Egg drop competition — demonstrates compressive strength, teaches engineering thinking
• Hand boiler — demonstrates vapour-liquid equilibrium and simple heat engine principles
• Newton's cradle — demonstrates elastic collision, conservation of momentum, and conservation of energy
• Gauss gun
• Plate trick or Dirac belt trick — demonstrates spinors and the double cover of SO(3) by SU(2)
• Prince Rupert's Drop — demonstrates supercooling and tensile stress
• Self-siphoning beads — demonstrates momentum, energy and inertia
• Water rocket — demonstrates conservation of momentum, conservation of energy, the gas laws and basic rocketry
• Franklin bells — demonstrate electric charges
• Oxford Electric Bell — an experimental electric bell that was set up in 1840 and which has run nearly continuously ever since
• Wimshurst machine — an electrostatic generator
• Shooting a candle through a plank
• Foucault pendulum — demonstrates the rotation of Earth

Chemistry

• Ammonia fountain — introduces concepts like solubility and the gas laws at entry level.
• Barking dog reaction — demonstrates rapid exothermic chemical reaction
• Blue bottle (chemical reaction) — demonstrates reduction and oxidation reactions, and chemical colour change
• Chemical garden
• Diet Coke and Mentos eruption — demonstrates bubble nucleation
• Dry ice color show
• Elephant toothpaste
• Fizz keeper
• Flame test
• Magic sand — demonstrates hydrophobic substances
• Mercury beating heart — demonstrates electrochemical redox reaction. and an effect of a non-homogeneous electrical double layer
• Screaming jelly babies — demonstrates the energy within candy
• Using liquid nitrogen to shatter a rose
• Detonating a cloud of flour