Welcome to My Jumping Coin Experiment BY Jessica Buenen

AIM The aim of the Jumping Coin Experiment is to make a coin jump from the top of a glass bottle. This can be accomplished by sitting the bottle in icy cold water, taking it out and wrapping you hands around it.

MATERIALS Bowl /Container of icy cold water Glass bottle A coin bigger than the bottles opening

PROCEDURE Place the bottle neck and the coin in the bowl of water. After a while, take them out. Put the bottle upright and place the coin on top. Now wrap your hands around the bottle and wait a while. Soon you will see the coin moving. When this happens, take your hands off. The coin should dance again happily for a while.

VIDEO Please refer to video on Jess’ s USB. Follow complete instructions; 2014 Science Jumping Coin Experiment

EXPLANATION When the bottle neck is placed in the cold water, the air inside it cools. When you put your hands around the bottle, the air inside heats up. This causes a thermal expansion of the molecules of air, but the coin is on top, stopping nature’s way. When the molecules expand there is nowhere to go. Once there is more temperature in the bottle, there is more pressure. The gas law states that for homogenous gas (or a mixture of gases); pressure is directly related to temperature. With the air molecules heated up, they use that pressure to try to push the coin that’s trapping them. This is what causes the coin to jump. Once you take your hands away, the air inside cools down but the hot air outside tries to get in. This makes the coin leap one last time. They coin eventually stops jumping when the air inside is completely cool.

RESULTS When I tried wrapping my hand around the bottle the first time, it didn’t work as the bottle wasn’t cold enough. This was because I hadn’t put any ice in the water bowl. But when I tried it with icy water it still wasn’t a passably cold temperature. I tried again and left the bottle and coin in the water a bit longer. I also kept my hands around the bottle for longer… and hay presto, a corner of the coin left the surface of the bottle top. This happened a few more times until I took my hands away. After I did this the coin didn’t move again, as it was suppose to. The fourth time I did this procedure, the results were the same as before.

Jumping Coin Results Table Attempts Results First Attempt Didn’t work as water wasn’t cold enough. Second Attempt Still didn’t work, even though the water was icy. Third Attempt I put a few more ice blocks in. It took a long time with my fingers wrapped around the bottle but I finally got the reaction I wanted. Fourth Attempt The coin jumped again but less time was taken to heat the bottle up.

CONCLUSION Throughout the many trials and errors, I realised that some of these attempts were unfair tests. For instance, some of the times the water wasn’t cold enough. Other times, I held my hands around the bottle for longer. As I tried and tried again, I used the same water which was slowly heating, to become room temperature.

BIBLIOGRAGHY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjcbvmjqIA

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