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This week's LabZone activity
May 26, 2004
The Electric Lifesaver
Wanna bet you can make sparks fly in your mouth?
The Setup
Candy that flashes lightning in your mouth is one of the all-time great tricks. You've gotta try this one—you may develop quite a taste for it.
Go into a dark room and wait for your eyes to adapt to the darkness. You can observe the mouth lightning with a mirror or take turns creating it with a friend. Hold a Wint O Green LifeSaver between your teeth and watch as you bite it. Sparks of blue-green light leap out wherever your teeth crack the candy. If you are not allowed to bite hard candies, use a pair of pliers.
The Fix
Sugar in the candy provides the energy. Some of it is emitted as ultraviolet light that the human eye can't detect. Wintergreen is a substance that absorbs the ultraviolet energy and transforms it into visible light. This process is called fluorescence. The excited wintergreen molecules emit a bright blue-green light that you see.
The same phenomenon is at work in certain adhesives. Rip apart a Curad bandage wrapper in the dark. Green light flashes from the strips as the glue is torn apart. The adhesive contains the necessary sugar and fluorescent material.
This trick will not work with candies made with sugar substitutes. You'll get no light from lite candy!
Reprinted with permission from Wanna Bet? Science Challenges to Fool You by Vicki Cobb and Kathy Darling. Text © 1993 by Vicki Cobb (www.vickicobb.com) and Kathy Darling. Published by William Morrow and Company.
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