I don’t agree. Rather, I don’t think she’s doing a magic trick, because this looks like a science demo I used to see all the time at the Science Museum where I worked. However, lots of magic tricks are science demos by other means.
You light the bill on fire having overtly dipped the bill in the alcohol. The alcohol burns, but it doesn’t burn hot enough to ignite the bill. It’s a demonstration of how heat is an important component of fire; it’s not enough to have fuel (here, the bill) and oxygen.
What you don’t do, though, is do the demo over a container of alcohol vapor next to a container of volatile liquid alcohol.
You light the bill on fire after soaking it in alcohol, let it burn a bit, then blow it out and it’s undamaged since only the alcohol burned and not the paper. The mark isn’t supposed to know it’s soaked in alcohol so it looks like magic.
As the daughter to a science teacher and a big science nerd myself, she definitely learns a lot about science. But first and foremost she learns about safety,why to be safe, and why you need to respect the elements. I’d rather she be afraid to play with matches and we still have her and our home, than her want to try an experiment and have everything be gone. I think it’s important for children to see what can happen as a learning experience, not as a scare tactic.
Leave a Reply