Awesome Steve Mould

Science educator Steve Mould shows off a fascinating thing that happens when you ignite lighter fluid in a narrow channel. The flame travels around and around until the fuel is fully burned. He started with a circle and tested various shapes to see how the flames behaved. Along the way, you’ll learn about the concept of an excitable medium.

When you heat fluids, they typically produce patterns. Science expert Steve Mould built a special rig that lets us see how these turbulent patterns emerge when applying heat. He tested with a few different liquids and particles to visualize these fascinating flows. Things get really interesting when mixing oil with mica.

Medical professionals use a special power saw to cut through casts when it’s time to remove them. While the high-speed saw blade slices effortlessly through a hardened cast, it does nothing to your body if it makes contact with your skin. Steve Mould investigates the physics that allows this ingenious device to work without causing bodily harm.

An assassin’s teapot is a trick vessel that was designed to let its user serve a safe drink to themselves and a deadly one to their victim. And while you should never do such a thing, it’s fascinating to see how one works. Science educator Steve Mould shows us the physics at work, and inspired us to use one of these to serve drinks at cocktail parties.

Did you know that putting ink from a ballpoint pen on the tail of a leaf turns it into a tiny, self-propelled boat? Science educator Steve Mould digs into this phenomenon and explores the chemistry and physics at work to make these leaf boats move and leave a trail of ink on the surface.

When you look at an old-timey barber pole, its stripes appear to spiral upward. Science educator Steve Mould shares a similar illusion designed by Ada Cohen that uses intertwined helixes to create the illusion that they’re disappearing endlessly into the top of the rig. Bottom line, spirals and helices have a way of messing with our brains.

Metal objects like the Metmo Cube are fascinating because they feature parts that are so precisely cut that you can’t see where one piece begins and the other one ends. Science educator Steve Mould explains wire EDM machining, which enables the creation of such incredibly tight-fitting objects.

After seeing a digital simulation of water being poured into a vertical maze and finding its way to the exit, science educator Steve Mould wanted to see if he could replicate the experiment in the real world. It’s interesting to see how maze complexity affects the way the water flows.

If you place a billiard ball on a spinning turntable, you’d think it would quickly slide off its edge. But as science educator Steve Mould shows us, the ball hangs on much longer than you’d expect. The physics at work here are truly fascinating, especially given how other objects leave the surface so quickly.