We’re going to put the Prince Rupert’s drop in, and then we’re going to nip it with a hammer and see what happens.

Welcome back to Smarter Every Day! We’re here at Orbix Hot Glass in Lookout Mountain, Alabama to explore the Mystery of the Prince Rupert’s Drop. This peculiar piece of glass is incredibly tough, but if you even nick the tail, it explodes! So today we’re recreating an experiment performed by Robert Hooke, one of the first scientists to study the Prince Rupert’s Drop. He used a fancy glue made out of fish bladders to coat and wrap the drop in leather before popping it, so he could observe the spatial fragment distribution as it exploded.

However, we’re taking a different approach and using plexiglass boxes to contain the drop before nipping it with a hammer and observing the results. Trent is here with us and has set up two High Speed cameras, the Smarter Every Day 7510 and 2511, to capture the moment of impact at 25,000 frames per second. Let’s see what happens! So that’s a bummer.

I want to fill it with an epoxy. This is a two-part epoxy used for coating wood and furniture. It’s a one-to-one mixture, so we’ll be using the Mix-o-tronic 3000™ to mix it in one of these cups and then degas it to get all the bubbles out. We’ll start a stopwatch and aim for the perfect hardness so that when we crack the Prince Rupert’s drop, it will show the fragmentation and explosion. We’ll then set up two cameras, one to capture the overall fracture wave, and the other to capture the radial explosion. After mixing the epoxy, we’ll start the stopwatch and wait for the desired hardness. We’ll then suspend the drop and pop it, followed by capturing the high speed footage. We’ll then review the footage, but it looks like we got a bit overexposed and didn’t get the desired results. Three, two, one.Let’s do it.

Trent: Yes.
Destin: OK, Trent: Whatcha doing there? Oh, you know...just trying to mix the vertical strata as well as the horizontal.I remember my baseball coach on a camping trip...taught me that mixing eggs is better with a fork than a spoon.We're pretty goopy this time.Smoking's happened.OK, I'm going to try in three....two...one Trying.....Don't trigger yet.Here we go.And.....
Ouch! Oh, it’s hot.Oh, man.It got on my finger and it sunk.
Trent: You alright?
Destin: Yeah, I'm good.It's the epoxy was hotter than I expected.OK, I'm going to wash that off for a quick so I don't get burned. With the epoxy on my watch, uh...That was like, 18, 19 minutes, man.OK, this is hard.The fluid is too liquid.We might not be able to do this because it didn't dissipate a crazy amount, and then it fell down, so this might not be possible.So there's definitely a shockwave.This shockwave propagates right into the bulb, right am I seeing that right? Like there's some kind of momentum to the shockwave.Oh, we learn something.OK, so there's a shockwave that just goes along the axis of the bulb boom.And then afterwards, the fragmentation.OK, so a pressure wave hits the glass that's cavitation, I assume, on the glass.
Trent: So right there is when it gets the biggest and then it starts to slam back shut.
Destin: It sure does.T: Hydrostatic pressure of the fluid, right? D: I would think so.How can we make that shot better? You're asking the right questions.So we need to get a shot between that viscosity and the first shot to viscosity.
Trent: Well, we know.Yeah.It's like it's like we wait for the potion to get ready.It starts smoking.I see smoke.You see magic smoke?
Destin: T: I see magic smoke, D: Magic, smoke tiiiiiime! We need to wait 2 minutes for magic smoke.Time to take effect.It's gelatinous.OK, ready? Yep.Three, two, one.Do it Destin! T: Keep it centered! I'm trying so hard.Can't even see it anymore.T: Keep it centered...D: Trying... oh, it turned! Gah! it turned on me.It twisted.I have failed BUT we can see the shards pretty good.OK, it still fell.The whole thing was gelatinous.Look at that.Holy cow.
Trent: Already?
Destin: The whole top is rigid.So magic smoke time, IS IT.I mean, that's it, man.We did get it to expand hey! As far as accomplishing what we were trying to accomplish, we did pretty good.OK, so goes.We were able to capture that, the spatial fragment distribution we were going for, but not this.So that's not homogeneous in terms of viscosity or hardness.It's not.It doesn't look like we're going to get what I wanted, which was like the galaxy.Frag pattern, but we're gonna get something cool.So mix...magic smoke....2 minutes...let the top get hard...T: And then wait D: And then wait! OK, on day two we're making two changes here.First of all, we're not going to use these pliers which try to shear the Prince Rupert's drop.Which ends up torquing it.We're going to use these bolt cutters which pinch directly.Hopefully that won't spin the Prince Rupert's drop in the box.And also we've made smaller boxes.The hope here is that we can see through less epoxy and we can get a better image.OK, we're going to mix up two things like this.And we're going to let it get hard in the whole bit.So.. Whoops! Ha Ha ha! Had a blowout! Oh, it's got little air bubbles on the PRD -Hah, yeah OK, here we go.Ready? I'm ready.Mouth closed?

Trent: Mouth closed?
Destin: Awesome.Three, two, one.Let's do it. Have a good one.

Heh, Hah! Hu Ha Oh, it’s beautiful, dude. - Got it. Airs coming in all the way through the tail. Right there…there’s air coming in and it’s going all the way through the glass. I don’t know, man, but that’s going to be awesome on desk, isn’t it? - Yes, it is. I’m going to set this right here while I save the high speed, see what happens. So here’s that footage sped up, and you can see a wing like bubble emanating from the shattered Prince Rupert’s drop. And the more I look at this and the more I think about it, the less I’m sure I understand what’s happening here. Is it the internal stresses in the epoxy? Is it some type of air coming down all the way through the Prince Rupert’s drop? I don’t really know. I’m still working on this. But what I DO know is the slow motion is awesome. It’s pushing a that’s a shockwave. It’s pushing a shockwave in the OH ITS A REFLECTED SHOCK WAVE! -HAHA! Should we try to do that shot again, but go faster, squish down. Yeah, it’s set up right now. We just have to frame it. Yeah. I also want to get the curlicue running down into it, too. Oh, man, I love this so much. So we. Didn’t end up freezing the fragments of a Prince Rupert’s drop medic explosion quite like I had visualized in my mind. But we did end up in my favorite place to be trying scientific things I’ve never done before and reveling in the exploration and the artistic beauty of what I’m experiencing. To me, there’s something about just playing and trying to understand the world around me and uncover more truth that just lights my soul on fire. I absolutely love this, and I think it’s beautiful.

And OK, I want to go update you on the laminar flow fountain. But before I do that, I want to tell you about today’s sponsor. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. And Brilliant is a really good tool that you can use to learn scientific concepts STEM science. Technology, engineering, math. All the different things. Brilliant has tons of different courses that you can take you can take one on scientific thinking, computer science, all different types of math. It’s a really good interactive way to learn these concepts because personally I learned the best when I’m actually doing things. So just like we did in this experiment on this video, you can grab handles, turn knobs, things of that nature. Brilliant is designed in a really cool way to make you OWN the content in your brain. Instead of just like memorizing facts, you can understand things. So if you don’t check this out, I’m going to Brilliant.org/SmarterEveryDay. You can sign up for Free and get 20% off your annual Premium membership. OK, laminar flow fountain update here in just a second. I love the Red Trains and here it is. This is what I wanted to show you. The laminar flow fountain is off.:( Look at this. I can learn about how water flows right here on my phone. And if I worked here, that would help me fix this. Alright I’m just being silly, but I do want the fountain going. And I do appreciate everybody that supports the sponsor because you’re smart. You know how this works. Everybody that supports the sponsor supports Smarter Every Day, and I’m grateful. So, again, if you’re interested in learning more about cool STEM concepts in an interactive way that will help you own the content, feel free to go to Brilliant.org/SmarterEveryDay, sign up for free and get 20% off your Annual premium membership.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Smarter Every Day. I’m going to coat this thing right here on the end and try to keep air from coming in it for a little desk ornament, but I hope you enjoyed learning some stuff about Prince Rupert’s drops. Like uh Like Robert Hooke did back in the 1600s. If he would have had the tools he could have done some amazing things, but I’m just grateful that we have access to tools like this. Thank you to the Patrons for supporting. You enable us to do things like rent, high speed cameras and all this kind of stuff, so I’m grateful. Feel free to subscribe if you want to. I’m Destin you’re getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one. Goodbye! I’m about to test the Prince Rupert’s Drop that I coated. I’m expecting it to shatter, but who knows, maybe it will stretch? Let’s find out. Three, two, one…go! Oh, I didn’t coat it enough - haha! Where did it go? I guess it exploded like everything else.