It’s National Chemistry Week, and at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, that means it’s time for Al Hazari’s annual Magic of Chemistry show.
Hazari, professor of chemistry, has used chemistry to perform “magic tricks” in his show for twenty-two years.
This year’s show will be at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 23, in Room 555 of Dabney-Buehler Hall. It’s hosted by the East Tennessee section of the American Chemical Society. The show is free and open to the public, and kids are encouraged to attend.
Hazari will incorporate this year’s National Chemistry Week theme “Nanotechnology: The Smallest Big Idea in Science” into his magic show.
Nanotechnology is a new field that involves working with very small materials that help scientists build new products and technology. Hazari says that nanotechnology is used in producing cars, computers, batteries, apparel, traffic lights, and medicine delivery, among other things.
“It was found that the ‘less is more’ idea is very true,” he said.
In this year’s Magic of Chemistry show, Hazari will demonstrate some of the applications of nanotechnology, along with performing such crowd-favorite tricks as creating a liquid, bubbling rainbow inside a glass cylinder, and transforming bubbles into floating balls of fire. New tricks will include checking paper money for magnetic ink, creating a cloud in a bottle, and building a ball out of carbon atoms.
Hazari spends a lot of time doing community outreach, teaching Knoxville about the value of chemistry. He won the Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach from the American Chemistry Society in 2000 and wrote a book, Misconceptions in Chemistry, which talks about the myths surrounding chemistry.
This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of National Chemistry Week, which is dedicated to increasing awareness about chemistry’s applications in everyday life. For more information about National Chemistry Week or the American Chemical Society, visit acs.org.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)
Holly Gary (865-974-2225, hgary@utk.edu)