A Well Done Scientific Hoax Called Water Marbles
Posted by: Antony Williams in UncategorizedCopyright©2010 Antony Williams
A couple of days ago I came across a video on YouTube about “Water Marbles”. I’ve inserted it below…I recommend watching it…it’s excellent!
It’s excellent because by time I had finished watching this I was both excited and confused. Confused because how could I not of heard of this experiment. Even if it was to work why were those spheres so big and uniform? Excited because I’d been looking for some good kitchen chemistry to do with my kids and this would be a great example. I couldn’t really get my head around how the observations were working but on a rushed grocery expedition prior to going into ScienceOnline2010 #scio10 this part weekend I threw everything necessary into the grocery basket to repeat the experiment.
At ScienceOnline2010 I was involved in a number of discussions, as usual, regarding data quality, curation and assertions….this being based on my experience with curating the ChemSpider database. Today I sat in on a discussion entitled “Getting the Science Right: The importance of fact checking mainstream science publications — an underappreciated and essential art — and the role scientists can and should (but often don’t) play in it – Rebecca Skloot, Sheril Kirshenbaum, and David Dobbs.” it was an interesting exchange with comments such as “newspapers and magazines don’t check facts” and the urban myth that a one minute kiss burns 26 calories while the fact is that a Hershey’s Kiss contains 26 calories.
Post ScienceOnline2010 I got home this afternoon to find my kids desperately wanting to do kitchen chemistry so, with pessimism I started to work through the experiment with them. They mixed and stirred and cooled and heated. They got to see a lot fizzing and to see crystals grow which they thought was great. It of course failed dismally as it has for many other people, including this guy, but they had a great time. In parallel I was doing some fact-checking to see whether or not to prepare them for disappointment.
There have been a lot of exchanges online about this topic of water marbles with chemists exchanging concepts about the science behind it if it did work. See here for example. The video has gone viral across many sites. Very impressive for a hoax really…and it did get me interested in doing kitchen chemistry. The truth is a lot easier though…and still good chemistry! Watch Steve Spangler in action below…
The polymer beads can be bought here.
There’s more Kitchen Chemistry to come but I think I’ll stick to some of Theodore Gray’s guidance …maybe time for some Mad Science at home…
Stumble it!
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January 18th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
So how many people are going to be trying to find “ionized” salt? I guess he meant “iodized” And I think it “loses” rather than “looses” properties.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Chance of something posted to YouTube by someone you’ve never heard of being true: 30%.
Chance of truth given repeated poor grammar, spelling, or wrong terminology: 10%. What the h*ll is “ionized salt”?
Chance of being true: 10% * 30% = 3%.
And you went out and bought the ingredients to repeat the “experiment”. Wow.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:12 am
The mind is a wonderful thing…I didn’t even see “ionized”! I read iodized given all the other misspellings in the video.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I saw this video and like a lot of other people I tried to make some ” water marbles”. The end result was a great big mess all over the kitchen. I thought that I had done something wrong and I gave up. About a month later I was at downtown with a friend. We went into a store and I saw a big vase filled with water marbles. Turned out they are a water absorbing beed that grow pretty big depending on how long you leave them in water. I reciment buying some they are really cool.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Comment to Sally….my kids learned a lot about Kitchen Chemistry the day we repeated the experiment. They had a lot of fun mixing “stuff”, saw gas evolving, learned about safety, following process and all for naught…a failed experiment. We then went into a discussion about the quality of sources of information, how everything should be questioned, especially when on the internet, and how even GOOD science cannot always be repeated to get the same result. The outcome of all of that was a “Can we do an experiment that works next time?”. So, they are interested in doing more “kitchen mixing” and I’m looking forward to the fun. It’s not the only thing I’ve done with my kids that doesn’t turn out as promised. An expensive electronics kit for Xmas ended up spinning a very small rotor in the air and right into my son’s lip only to slice it and send blood everywhere. Not fun.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
This is a good post about a fun little scientific hoax. With respect to some of the comments, I think we should be careful about using shortcuts for assessing and ruling on scientific validity. How do we check if a claim is true or false? Should we use the scientific method, rely on existing literature, or base it on impressions?
Good science is not really about good grammar, spelling, or proper use of terminology. It is also not about whether the person or source is known. If the hoaxer had cleaned up his spelling and grammar, and if he had managed to publish his findings in a more reputable medium, then this would have certainly made his hoax appear more credible. However, it wouldn’t have made it any more scientific. Sadly, there are well written things I have seen in scientific journals that… But I digress.
How do we best confront bad or dubious science claims? I like how Tony used the scientific method and critical thinking without taking short cuts. He read and explored literature. Of course, it takes time and effort to do all of this. The process is a great teaching tool but it is long. The mainstream world doesn’t seem to have time for long things. It is full of sound bites, short claims, and equally short counterclaims. Did the discussion about “Getting Science Right” come to any recommendations?
February 6th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Something written well, without spelling errors and full of scientific language can just as easily be a hoax. But how many people would notice. Check out this one: http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v12/n4/pdf/4401614a.pdf
March 26th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Oh my.. i tried this.. and .. didn’t even think to look at the video comments, i was super excited to try it.. and it looked odd, i put the vineger and baking soda together in the freezer.. 10mins later took it out and had the calcium and salt sitting in the pot and added the water mixture and boiled it… nothing dissolved and nothing happened.. after the 7min boiling.. nothing happened, i was starting at the mess thinking what went wrong.. after went on the computer to do some research and/ huzzah!.. a hoax
this is disappointing, but still cool .I wish the video just said it was water marbles, because a lot of people are just getting screwed over ;p
April 18th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
HAH! Ionized is that like annondized?
I don’t think anyone is getting “Screwed over” If you feel like you were though perhaps you should ask for your money back! lol
August 31st, 2010 at 12:42 pm
just put glycerin in the beaker and any glassy transparnt thing dissapears
October 19th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
I am definitely going to be trying this out with my kids. Very neat!
December 9th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
so the people who made the first video, what were they thinking? I mean really? How would all those random things mixed together make these water marbles? hahaha!
December 9th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
I’m surprised the lyrics of the song didn’t clue anyone in.