This demonstration
of psychic chemistry can find uses in discussion of experimental
design, acid-base indicators, aqueous equilibria, and calculating
the pH of weak acid solutions.
As part of a recent NOVA program on psychic
phenomena in Russia, the magician and crusader for scientific
integrity, James Randi, visited
a scientific institute in Moscow where a Rasputin-like
character claimed to be able to cause chemical changes to occur
using mind-power ... PSYCHIC CHEMISTRY! In a video segment not
used in the program that was aired on public television, the director
of the laboratory, a Ph.D. in chemistry, demonstrated the power
of the purported psychic by having him change the color of a blue
solution to yellow. The solution was sitting on a magnetic stirrer
in an uncovered beaker, which the psychic concentrated on intensely.
Miraculously, after several minutes of focusing on the solution,
with an occasional grunt for effect, the solution turned from
blue to green and finally to yellow. The psychic then sat back
with a satisfied look on his face.
This makes for an outstanding demonstration.
After showing the video, the instructor puts on his psychic outfit
(with safety glasses, of course) and performs the same miracle
for the class! Of course, the instructor also has a pH meter handy
to demonstrate to the class (but not before amazing them and then
questioning them about how the miracle is performed and how it
could be properly tested using careful experimental design) that
the psychic is exhaling into the beaker, causing the pH to drop
due to carbon dioxide reaction with water, and the bromthymol
blue indicator, which was originally blue due to base added to
the solution, turns green and then yellow.
Figure 1. Psychic Chemistry
(A) The psychic chemist performs a miracle
(B) The author, a certified fake psychic chemist, duplicates the
miracle
Download a 6 minute Quicktime
movie "James Randi and the Psychic Chemist" (18 MBytes!)
Contributors:
[Thanks are due to the Amazing Randi, who, through prizes,
scholarships, lectures, books and reference facilities offered
by his James Randi Educational
Foundation, is at the forefront in promoting scientific integrity
and education.]
Page prepared by: Mike Epstein
Last Modified: 30 April 1999
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