On Monday, I had a chance to go to a Science and Cooking Lecture called “gAstronomy” at Harvard University with Jocelyn and Elle. Bill Yosses, the former White House pastry chef and the author of The Perfect Finish and Steve Howell, the project scientist of NASA Kepler & K2 missions, carried out a variety of demonstrations of how principles chemistry and physics can be applied in gastronomy as well as astronomy. The chef and the scientist alternated back and forth between the edible and the inedible because “the laws to explain this world should apply to world above.” They briefly covered several topics, including the significance of sphere in cooking and the exoplanets, pigments and spectroscopy, importance of pressure etc. Steve did a quick experiment that tested the presence of atmospheric pressure with a hard-boiled egg that doesn’t fit into the mouth of a flask. When he threw a match lit with fire into the flask and placed the egg on the mouth of the flask, it fell into the beaker because the pressure inside the flask got lower compared to the atmospheric pressure.
One of the most memorable demonstrations was using hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide, and soap to make a soaring chain of foam. When potassium iodide reacts with hydrogen peroxide, it speeds up the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into oxygen gas and water by taking one of the oxygen molecules from H2O2. The orange food dye was used to make the foam formation more visible. Here is the video. Enjoy!
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