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STEVE SPANGLER: Hey, Higgins, give me a beat.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: That's pretty good.
HIGGINSWORTH: You guys can jump in.
STEVE SPANGLER: That's good.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: All right, this is sounding good.
We're still talking about sound, the sound of science.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: We gotta keep our day job.
We're going to learn all about sound.
We're going to learn about how sound waves produce
this kind of music.
I don't know that I'd call it music.
We're gonna learn all about how to make the coolest tones,
and sometimes all you have to do is go to the
local hardware store.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice job, guys.
What are you wearing that hat for?
I'm wearing that hat.
HIGGINSWORTH: It's my musician's hat.
STEVE SPANGLER: Keep going.
I'm doing a good job.
Sound.
I'm Steve Spangler, and I'm all about making science fun.
For the last 20 years, I've been teaching ways to turn
ordinary science experiments into unforgettable learning
experiences.
I have an amazing team who will do whatever it takes to
affect the way people think about science.
And to do that, I live by one motto--
make it big, do it right, give it class.
All right.
Before you head to the hardware store, we're going to
the grocery store.
Because these glass bottles are gonna--
HIGGINSWORTH: Steve, I finished them.
STEVE SPANGLER: You did a good job there.
HIGGINSWORTH: I don't feel well.
STEVE SPANGLER: That's good.
Did you fill them with the water that I asked you to do?
HIGGINSWORTH: I hope so.
STEVE SPANGLER: Did you do a lot of that tapping?
HIGGINSWORTH: Yeah.
STEVE SPANGLER: We are going to see if you did a good job.
HIGGINSWORTH: It sounds pretty good.
STEVE SPANGLER: Good job.
It's probably time for you to take a little nap.
Vibration.
This sound--
[BANGING GLASS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --is that sound that we hear of the
glass vibrating, right?
So the molecules inside the glass are vibrating, giving
off a certain pitch, right?
They're resonating at a certain frequency.
[BANGING GLASS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Now I don't know if you can call that a
note or not, but we can actually change it.
And we change it by simply adding some water.
So the water goes in here like this, and see if you can tell
the difference.
Here, listen to this.
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Yeah, that's perfect.
So here.
No water.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Can you tell that's going to be the most
annoying sound in your house?
Because you need to take these bottles and see if you can
somehow make some sort of scale out of them.
So let's see if Higginsworth did a good job.
All right.
So here.
Oh, look at this.
See all the different levels?
Oh, this is good.
So somehow, the correlation I'm going to make is the more
amount of water that's inside, the lower the pitch.
All right?
So if that's the case, then we simply align them
like this to see.
Oh, you can already hear them making their little sounds.
All right, got it.
All right, perfect.
All right, so let's see if he did a good job.
They should go from low to high.
[BANGING GLASS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice.
[BANGING GLASS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice job.
Homework complete.
A plus.
So the sound here that you're hearing is the
resonating of the glass.
But that's not the only way that we can make the sound.
You watch "The Beverly Hillbillies," right?
So you know about blowing into the jug.
The sound is very different.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: The correlation that we found is
the greater amount water, right, the--
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --lower the sound.
And it's going to take some patience with you adding just
a little bit of water at a time--
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --trying to get your notes.
I don't know, you may even use a phone app
to try to find pitch.
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Not bad, right?
So greater the amount of water, lower the frequency,
correct, of the vibration.
So this is--
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --low.
But watch this.
The opposite is if I blow into it, listen to this.
[HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: It's high.
This is low.
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: High.
[HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: They don't correspond in their pitch.
But it is interesting, because listen to this.
Now if we start dumping it out, listen.
[HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: That's one.
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: I know, it's compelling.
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: So the correlation here, again, the
less water--
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: --the lower the sound.
Because--
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: --no longer is the glass vibrating, but the
air inside the bottle is vibrating.
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: So we get two completely different sounds
just depending on what vibration we're dealing with.
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: See if I can get a little bit lower.
[LOW-PITCHED WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: Guess I'm not a musician, and I'm dizzy.
All right.
Now it's a trip to the hardware store, because who
doesn't like to play with PVC, right?
You just stand in the aisle, and you're always coming up
with something.
You can always tell those people that have nothing to do
at the hardware store, because it's not a
real plumbing project.
They're sitting just kind of fitting stuff together,
ultimately to make a rocket.
But you're going to need some PVC for this.
And for this particular one, what's different than what you
saw before is that the various lengths of pipe don't make a
difference in terms of the vibration of the plastic.
Here, listen to this.
So here's the plastic.
[BANGING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: OK?
And here's one that's much longer.
[BANGING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: Same.
And different.
[BANGING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: Yet, I can get a different tone out of each
one of those if I just do something different.
And what I'm going to do differently is I'm going to
use my palm to be able to vibrate the air
that's inside the pipe.
So there's nothing inside the pipe, of
course, except for air.
And listen to this.
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Difference.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: So literally, you can make an octave scale
of palm pipes.
You just have to know--
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --exactly how to cut them.
And so that's exactly what we did, is we found a way to cut
them and then tested and tested.
And you don't want to have to do that.
So I have for you on the link that's here exactly how many
centimeters each one needs to be so that you can have a
perfect scale.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: You're going to want to paint them, make
them look better.
They should look like this.
See, all you do is pretty them up all here like this.
So if we show you the length of them, you can see that the
length is different all the way across.
Here, this one goes over here.
Great.
But now, here's our sounds.
Here, listen to this.
[LOW TO HIGH-PITCHED BANGING]
STEVE SPANGLER: Perfect.
Listen to this cool sound.
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: Now we get both great things, because we
get the sound of this plastic tube--
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: --and the air that's inside.
And you're wondering, where did I get this plastic tube?
Simple.
This is the tube that goes inside of a golf bag, so I
guess they put their little golf clubs down inside here.
So here's one way to get some of these.
Just offer to caddy, and when they're off golfing think,
you've got yourself some.
That's not really a good idea.
I think you should just go to store.
They're only a couple bucks.
And you probably guessed right.
If you cut these--
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: --that pitch will change.
Well, there's some pretty smart people.
They actually invented a product called Boomwhackers.
And so instead of having to do this--
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: --and it is kind of nice to be able to
smack yourself in the head with them-- you've got these
that are over here, color coded and ready to go.
So on one end, the C.
[LOW-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice.
On the other end, C.
[HIGH-PITCHED BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: Really, really nice.
And so what makes these kind of fun is that we can do two
of them together.
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: Nice.
Now here's three of them.
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: And you probably shouldn't hit
yourself in the head too much.
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: Sounds pretty good.
[VIBRATING PLASTIC]
STEVE SPANGLER: So here's what we did.
We took Boomwhackers, and we went to
Coors Field in Colorado.
And we took 10,000 kids for a little thing called Weather
and Science Day.
And we gave them a limited scale here-- so probably C, E,
G, A, and C--
to see whether or not we could conduct from the field this
massive sound, kind of some rhythms.
Well, as fun as that was, they did make a lot of sound, and
there's some pretty cool rhythms there.
But that's 10,000 people all doing this at the same time.
There's gotta to be something better.
And there is, because there's some people who have mastered
this called Plastic Musik.
These guys are totally for real, total musicians, who are
using their talents with Boomwhackers.
They know how to make plastic pipes sing.
Well, you need another kind of pipe at the hardware store,
and-- ow-- this one is not one that you can hit yourself in
the head with.
It's a--
[METALLIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: --cast-iron pipe, a steel pipe, right?
And you can't really make great sound this way.
It doesn't make great sound.
But check this out.
There's a genie inside.
There is.
I'm serious.
I can see it.
So in order to wake the genie--
this is the greatest thing-- you can't just do this.
[METALLIC BANGS]
STEVE SPANGLER: You have to use fire, because all great
genies wake with fire.
I just made that up.
So check this out.
Here's the fire, and we're going to wake the genie.
All right, so watch this.
I'm waking the genie.
Oh, genie, wake from the tube.
Here we go.
You're going to be able to hear it.
Listen to this.
Listen.
Listen.
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: See?
There's the genie.
Got it?
So now I can cap it off.
So the genie only--
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: --only comes out on my command.
I completely--
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: Watch this.
You can pour the genie like this.
Watch.
I have the genie now in the cup.
I'm going to pour it back in the tube.
Here you go, genie.
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: Totally in control of the genie.
You're not buying it.
I can tell.
All right, there's no genie inside the tube.
But what there is inside the tube, believe it or not, when
you're looking here, there's something hiding
right here in the tube.
And if I have a plastic tube so you can see, here it is.
This is just a piece of screen.
Now it's really heavy duty screen, but what in the world
could a piece of screen do to be able to make the sound?
Well, here's the piece of screen before I crumpled it up
and jammed it inside the very end of the tube.
And watch what happens if I take the screen here and I get
the screen hot.
Here, watch.
Let's start the torch.
Now a lot of people wonder, can you do
this with a blow dryer?
You can't.
So if you can't handle the torch, then you can't do the
demonstration, of course.
But you're going to need the torch, because we need to get
the screen very, very hot.
So watch.
I'm going to hold onto it with tongs, like this.
When I put the screen in here, if you just use regular screen
that you would get from the door, it's just going to melt.
So you need to have a screen, heavy wire, that you can do
this, pull it away, and it still gives off heat.
Even without this, I don't want to touch it, because I
can feel heat coming off that screen.
That's really, really important, because that heat
and the hot air rising is what's going to give the sound
to the tube.
Well, the key here is to know that hot air rises, right?
So I take a piece of that screen-- remember, it's that
heavy duty-- and I put it right in here so it's about
even in that tube.
I really have the screen right about there.
So when I put it over here, what I'm really
heating is the screen.
Now I can't do it in here.
It's going to melt the piece of plastic.
But this gets nice and hot.
When you pull it away, it still is evolving heat, and we
know that hot air rises.
So as this rises, it's like a chimney.
So air comes in here, correct?
Goes through here, vibrates, perfect frequency, right.
And so it comes out the top here.
So if I put my hand here, I could actually stop it.
And the reason for using the big heavy pipe is because I
can hang onto it without gloves for a
short period of time--
really fairly long.
You can see the whole demonstration--
and still be able to touch here and touch here and it's
not super, super hot.
So the thicker the pipe--
I know it's kind of a pain to have a big pipe that's this
thick-- but this is going to help.
It's just so that you don't burn your hands.
Watch.
All right, it's time to get this screen nice and hot.
So this goes over here like this.
I'm not actually touching the screen.
I'm just getting the screen nice and hot.
I'm going to have to hold it there for just a little time,
because I really want that to get hot.
As soon as it pulls away, I like to turn this off.
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: And immediately,
the sound is there.
It's because the air is being drawn up.
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: I can actually feel the air kind of coming in
and coming out here.
But how do I pour the sound?
Watch this.
You can't pour sound, right?
There's nothing in here.
It's just this is sideways.
It doesn't make any sound.
The air can't come in and vibrate.
When I tip it up this way--
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: --it goes again.
Got it?
So now I can do this, pour it in, make sure that everyone
thinks there's sound, pour it back again.
[LOUD WHISTLE]
STEVE SPANGLER: I've used that one to fool
even physics teachers.
STEVE SPANGLER: All right, I've got the idea.
Big finale.
Let's take all these science kind of gadgets that make
sounds and put them in the hands of
really creative people.
And I'll be the conductor, and we're going to
conduct science music.
Big finale.
Higginsworth, get the people!
[HELIUM VOICE]
We're making music, and it's science music.
And they're going to follow my lead.
It's going to be awesome.
Follow the beat.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
HIGGINSWORTH: Go!
[WILD BANGING AND CHEERING]
STEVE SPANGLER: No, that's not good!
No!
That's not what I wanted!
No, follow me!
This is not what I wanted at all.
It's bad.
Stop!
That's not what I wanted!
No!
DIRECTOR: Cut.
Whenever you're ready.
STEVE SPANGLER: All right.
Stand by.
Three, two.
Give me a beat.
[RHYTHMIC BANGS]
HIGGINSWORTH: Guys, you can jump in.
STEVE SPANGLER: That's pretty good.
I like that.
Still talking about sound.
It sounds pretty good, doesn't--
still.
I lost my thing.
I lost everything.
Not as good as I thought.