Clear Spheres Vanish Like Magic – Cool Video from Numb3rs
What do you see? A bowl of water? Yes, it’s a bowl of water, but it’s also filled with Clear Spheres – a water-absorbing polymer that soaks up 300 times its weight in water. It’s a science demonstration that many of us have done with our students to demonstrate the index of refraction. When you drop the hydrated spheres into the bowl of water, they vanish since the water-filled spheres have an identical index of refraction as the water in the bowl. This quick sequence was part of the opening scene on the show Numb3rs and used to illustrate things that are “hidden from our view.”
