We’ve come to the end of the line here at Science! For Parties. But like any good party guest, we’ve saved the best for last. For our final party trick, we’re going to teach you how to pull of the greatest party trick ever recorded in human history. A feat so grand that the first person to ever successfully pull it off was declared to be the son of god. Today dear reader, you are going to learn how to turn water into wine.
What will you need to pull off this science feat of biblical proportions? Well, to start you’ll need two identical glasses, one filled to the brim with water and the other filled to the brim with red wine. You’ll also need a thin piece of plastic that is just a bit larger than the diameter of the top of your glass. Take the plastic and cover the top of the water glass. Holding the plastic down in place and being careful not to spill, turn the water glass upside down and place the water glass on top of the wine glass with the thin piece of plastic resting between the two glasses. Holding on to the top glass to keep it from tipping over, gently pull the plastic over so as to create a small opening where the water and wine are now mixing. Depending on the size of the glasses you used it should take about five to ten minutes for the wine and the water to completely switch glasses. When the switch is complete, lift the top glass, which is now full of wine, and flip it back right side up. (Obviously keeping the piece of plastic in place so as to avoid spilling your wine everywhere). Ta-Dah!! The water is now in the wine glass and the wine is now in the glass formerly occupied by the water. Congratulations!
Now you’re wondering how does it work. Well, it all has to do with the density. Density is the measure of mass over volume. Meaning the denser something is, the more of its mass is packed into a given volume of space. In this case, water is the denser of our two liquids, so when they have mixed the water sinks to the bottom and when it does that it displaces the wine upwards, literally pushing it into the other glass so it can take its place.
Pretty simple stuff, but at the end of the day you still took a glass full of water and turned it into a glass full of wine and that ain’t nothing to sneeze at. That’s going to do it for Science! For Parties. I hope you’ll be using the tricks and scientific principles you used here for years to come. Just don’t get cocky and try something silly like walking on water. We still have some work to do before we’ve got that one ready for the party circuit.