Science Experiment

Chris gets to do a "Mr. Wizard" type show at work today because he is partnering with our local boy scouts in a program about "Mr. Wizard" type stuff. He was very excited (and very nervous) when like a bazillion people signed up to come check it out (ok, less than that, but still I think at least 100 people are going to be there...I'll have to ask him). To get prepared he obviously had to line up some cool experiments and he was trying them out at home last night just to make sure everything was in working order and there would be no surprises. (Thus the last post with the lightning globe.) Anyway, I'll get to the point here.

In one of his experiments he put a lightbulb in the box that normally would hang it on your ceiling and had two long screws sticking out the other side. The point (and normal hypothesis) would be that until something connects those metal screws you can't conduct electricity. The results are supposed to be that you stick the screws in water and nothing happens because water doesn't conduct electricity. Then, you pour salt into the water and, voila, you have light because salt DOES conduct electricity. Then, there is our house. Chris stuck the screws into the water and...wait a minute, it's lighting up! What? He decided to try it with our RO (reverse osmosis) water. Guess what? No light...just the way it's supposed to be. At this point we know that his experiment is going to work just fine, but we are still questioning why our water conducts electricity. Oh yeah, we have a water softener, with what? Yeah, salt. Chris decided one more test. We'll get water from the spigot that comes straight from the well. Sure enough, we had light. So, I don't know if it's iron or what, but our water conducts electricity! Needless to say, I am more impressed with RO systems than ever now and I think anything that will be consumed by my children or myself (yeah, Chris too) having to do with water, will come from the RO. I don't want to know what else is in our well water...or maybe I do.

*Update: Of the 120 people that said they would/or would try to be there, 16 showed up. What a bummer!