exploratorium

Exhibits

SUBJECTS

Chemistry

A Drop to Drink

Getting a drink of water would be very different if you were the size of a doll.

Where:   Crossroads: Getting Started
Cloud Chamber

Look down into the chamber and you’ll see an ongoing cascade of thin white trails appearing and disappearing. These are cosmic ray tracks, created by high-energy subatomic particles from space.

Where:   Bechtel Gallery 3: Seeing & Listening
Geysers

The timing of the eruptions of these geysers depends on water temperature and pressure.

Where:   Gallery 4: Living Systems
Icy Bodies

Like comets, these chunks of dry ice slowly disintegrate as they move, leaving a visible trail of condensed water vapor.

Where:   Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery 6, Mezzanine
Liquid Litmus

See the chemical reactions taking place in an electrolytic cell, as electricity flowing through a tank of salt water and pH-indicating dye creates zones of acidic (yellow) and basic (blue) solutions.

Where:   Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery 6, Mezzanine
Rust Wedge

Rust is a major issue in waterfront buildings, as water enters cracks in masonry structures and rusts the underlying steel reinforcement. This exhibit shows the expansive force of rusting steel. A piece of iron placed in the cleft of a block of concrete is beginning to rust—it will expand over time and eventually fracture the block.

Where:   Koret Foundation Bay Walk
Skillets

Skillets heat up differently: test their mettle.

Where:   Bechtel Gallery 3, Wattis Webcast Studio
Water-Drop Photography

Here you can select and photograph a precise moment—to within a millisecond—as a water droplet falls into a small pool of water. Freezing the action reveals both the complexity and the beauty of fluid motion.

Where:   Crossroads: Getting Started