These Stunning Videos Of Chemical Reactions Will Take Your Breath Away

Aside from its depiction in the hit series Breaking Bad, chemistry has long gotten a bad rap as the least sexy of the sciences. A new digital media project aims to change all that, starting with a series of eerily alluring videos that capture what happens when two chemical substances combine.

The scientists behind the project, which they've aptly named Beautiful Chemistry, used a special camera to zoom in on some of the most common chemical reactions and provide a new perspective on what's really going on inside those beakers.

Say, for example, a researcher were to run a typical precipitation reaction a run-of-the-mill test typically used to uncover a hidden element in a solution. Here's what she'd normally see in her test tube: A clear solution would turn cloudy when a few drops of another solution were added.

Snore.

So, Chinese researchers thought, what would happen if someone were to take that everyday reaction and run it outside of a test tube, with a camera lens that could zoom in on all the action taking place at a super small scale?

That's precisely what they did, and the results are stunning.

Here's what happened when the researchers put a bit of iron chloride, a compound lab researchers often use to jumpstart other reactions, in a solution of corrosive sodium metasilicate.Beautiful Chemistry

Beautiful Chemistry

Beautiful Chemistry

Beautiful Chemistry

Originally posted here:
These Stunning Videos Of Chemical Reactions Will Take Your Breath Away