Very very frightening..
Cambridge & Great Eastern Regional Group : 300 captivated by
spectacular Thunder and
Lightning lecture
 An audience of over 300 gathered in early November 2006 in the main lecture theatre of
Cambridge University’s Department of
Chemistry for this spectacular ‘Thunder and
Lightning’ demonstration by Colin Baker,
director of studies at Bedford School.
Subtitled
a ‘spectacular chemistry lecture and
demonstration’, no-one left disappointed.
At the evening event, organised by SCI
Cambridge & Great Eastern (CaGE) regional
group and held jointly with the RSC Mid-Anglia
Section, Baker performed classic demonstrations not commonly seen in modern
school science lessons. Assisted by technician
Assunta Spina, he generated a great deal of
chemical sound and light.
There were thermit reactions, hydrogen/oxygen balloons and rockets, trails of burning
ether, transition metal colours, freezing
solutions, hydrogen peroxide generated crazy
foams, nitrogen tri-iodide detonations, not to
mention unusual applications of
chemiluminescence.
The chairman of the CaGE regional group,
John Wilkins, watched anxiously as the £20
note he had volunteered was soaked in ethanol/
water and ignited. Fortunately the solvent
composition had been carefully judged so that,
though it burned readily with a clear blue flame,
the note was undamaged.
Baker was awarded the Salter’s Institute
Medal in a competition to find the country’s best
chemistry teachers. In January 2006 he was
awarded the University of Nottingham Shaw
Medal for maintaining the tradition of the
demonstration lecture.
This will be a hard act to follow and would
not have been possible without the assistance
of the staff of the Department of Chemistry in
putting on this lecture.
John Wilkins and John O’Toole
Cambridge & Great
Eastern Regional Group
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