Electric Circuit Experiments: Flaming Ethanol Resistor

Video Transcript

"Alright, so here's one that I really like to do. We can actually control the electrolytic properties of our gelatin by making it catch on fire. And the way I do that is I make jello, and instead of making it with water, I made this batch with ethanol which is simply alcohol. You can use rubbing alcohol, you can use ethanol, you buy at a liquor store, or a pharmacy and you just make jello as normal. Or, if you don't want to make it you can buy hand sanitizer. Which is actually jelly ethanol. So what we're going to do is we're going to hook this circuit up and it's just going to be like our jello. It's conducting things but now I'm going to light it on fire. Now it's hard to see that fire but what's happening is, as it bubbles some of the water is going to evaporate out and the solution is going to become more concentrated and it's going to change the pitch. So it's being controlled by the fire right now. The chemical properties are changing due to the alcohol burning off. "