X-Message-Number: 20687
From: 
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 16:25:47 EST
Subject: Re: Science fair project

--part1_24.328d4a1d.2b3787db_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



From: Joesph A Zarka <>


> 
> My Son is doing a science fair project on nanotech. Can anyone give me
> any info on where I can find material on this subject that a 5th grader
> would be able to understand.
> 
> 

No reference at hand but an idea:

Mesuring molecular scale:

Take a clean bowl and put some (clean) water in it. Put a dop of acrylic 
glue, it expands nearly instantly into a tin sheet. Put another glue drop, it 
don't expand, why? Wait for some time, may be ten minutes then poor another 
glue drop, it expands.

The explanation?
The glue contains a solvant, reducing the surface tension of water. So the 
solvant expands on the liquid surface and stretch the glue. After the first 
drop, nearly all the water surface is covered with the solvant. The second 
glue drop can't cover more water and there is no expansion. After a while, 
the solvant has evaporated and the expansion process work anew. The solvant 
coat expand until there is a film only one molecule thick. Doing the 
experiment on different surfaces until a second drop start to expand tell you 
how a monomolecular coat can expand. If you know the solvant volume at start, 
you can estimate how thick is a molecule.

You don't need a PhD and a scanning electron microscope to do molecular 
science. No lab, a kitchen suffice.

Yvan Bozzonetti.

--part1_24.328d4a1d.2b3787db_boundary

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20687