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   Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (_thegeoff@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Apr-2025 07:51:22 JST Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

   Today's April Fool gag, courtesy of an excellent school technician forum:

   I stick a small test tube in a large beaker of glycerol. The borosilicate glass and glycerol have the same refractive index, so the test tube is basically invisible.

   I explain that I've invented a perfect glue that even puts things back in place, smash a test tube, pour the broken glass in to the beaker (it disappears), stir, and pull out a complete test tube.

   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (_thegeoff@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 03-Apr-2025 18:43:36 JST Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

     in reply to

     To their credit, whilst generally being amazed, several students (maybe 12 years old) voiced concerns. Maybe it wasn't actually magic? Maybe the unbroken test tube was there all along? But why didn't they see it, etc?
     They've been studying refraction recently, so bonus. Plus I get to quote "any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic:.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (_thegeoff@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 03-Apr-2025 18:43:57 JST Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

     in reply to

     Yup, I explained what was happening. The nice thing with this trick is that even when you know how it works, and I dip a test tube back into the glycerol, it *still* looks like magic as it disappears as it fills up. Hell,*I* think it's cool, and I'm the one doing the demo.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (_thegeoff@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 03-Apr-2025 18:44:03 JST Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

     in reply to

     Nicest thing though, was the students "Sherlocking the heck out of it" with what they knew. They didn't nail it, but they went through the process of eliminating the impossible, in the five minutes we had, whilst bouncing off the walls. The latter is a given as 12yr olds, the former is our aim as a science dept.