How To Make Magnetic Slime
Science: it’s pretty awesome! Seriously, though, I feel like science gets a bad rep for being “boring” or “too nerdy” way too often, when in fact it’s possibly more fun than a barrel of monkeys. For instance, did you know that if you mix cornstarch and water and put the resulting paste on a speaker (covered in plastic, of course), it “dances?” How about the fact that you can learn about how two waves interfere with each other using a backyard kiddie pool?
We’re pretty nerdy and proud here at Wimp, so we always love when we see a fun science experiment/project that’s educational while still being entertaining. We’ve even had science help us plan the perfect road trip across America! That’s why when we saw that one of our favorite YouTube channels, DaveHax, had come out with a video teaching us how to make our very own magnetic slime … let’s just say Dave had us at “Hello.”
You may be wondering one of two things: what does borax do and why don’t the iron fillings leave the slime for the magnet? Those two questions actually go hand-in-hand. If you didn’t add the borax and just had the glue and the iron, you could eventually separate the iron out. The addition of borax to the glue leads to a reaction known as polymerization, where the molecules of the mixture form long, sticky strands.
This polymer also has a lot of surface cohesion, which is why the slime is magnetically responsive but doesn’t allow the iron to leave. Pretty cool, right?
H/T: DaveHax
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