It was a peaceful and beautiful late October afternoon in the Quad, as dozens of curious students gathered beneath the Quad’s trees with leaves now turning a bright red. About 30 feet away was a table with three pumpkins. Was a pumpkin-carving contest about to begin?
“We love exploding things,” said one of two men wearing white lab coats and safety goggles at the table, and quickly adding, “but we do it in controlled fashion.”
The men were CIU science professors Drs. Christopher Jones and Alex Manzewitch. That’s right. They were about to explode the pumpkins. And that’s why the students were 30 feet away.
Their scientific demonstration was hosted by CIU’s Biohealths Club.
As Jones held down the pumpkin lids, Manzewitch held a flame under the first pumpkin and yelled “fire in the pan,” a common warning that an explosion is about to take place.
BOOM!
That’s when the pumpkin turned into a friendly-smiling jack-o-lantern as the eyes, nose and mouth shot out from the rest of the “head.”
The same result came with the second pumpkin, while the third was designed to spell out CIU, but the letter “I” did not fare very well.
Inside the pumpkin was water and calcium carbide pellets.
What was learned from the demonstration?
“Exothermic processes give off energy in the form of heat and when heat impacts something and gas expands. It goes boom,” explained Jones. “Acetylene is produced with the calcium carbide, then that reacts with the oxygen in the air, and it produces CO2 and water. And the water is in the form of steam, so it’s gaseous, and so it really expands.”
Catch all that?
Jones put it into more everyday terms. It’s the same process taking place underneath the hood of your car.
“That’s basically what’s happening boom boom boom boom in the pistons of your car,” explained Jones. “So that’s why they call it internal combustion engine. Gasoline is exploding and making your pistons move up, which turns your drive shaft.”
Introducing the demonstration to the crowd was Biohealths Club member and sophomore Jasmine Spurling who would like to be a veterinarian in the future.
“I think science has always been one of the most interesting subjects for me,” said Spurling. “I’m hoping to work in animal and species preservation. I think science is an amazing thing.”
So do her professors. Jones says he has exploded a lot of pumpkins in his day.
“I think science is fun,” he added.
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