10-27-2012 Hydrogen

I was talking to older son about his homework, which was to work on a write up and model of an atom.  I asked him if he could do hydrogen (because then you could just take an apple for the proton and put a grape on a toothpick for the electron).

No, on two counts.  Must be at least atomic number of 6, and can't use food.

So, he picked nitrogen.

But, it gave me an idea.  Let's make some hydrogen.

My Dad showed me this a long time ago, and there were also plenty of examples on the internet.

Some tubes, some wires (borrowed from the inverter we bought this summer), salt water and batteries.

We hooked it up and right away saw the bubbles.  Later, once we had enough gas saved up, I took the tube outside and lit it to prove what we had done.  Retried the experiment with both hydrogen and oxygen going into the same tube, seemed to have the same effect when lighting it (maybe a slight "pop" sound though)