Why don’t oil and water mix? - John Pollard
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TEDEd Animation
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Salt dissolves in water; oil does not. But why? You can think of that glass of water as a big, bumpin' dance party where the water molecules are always switching dance partners -- and they'd much rather dance with a salt ion. John Pollard explains how two chemistry principles, energetics and entropy, rule the dance floor.
In the video, “dancing” is used as an analogy to convey the ideas of energetics and entropy. Can you build an explanation for why salt dissolves and oil doesn’t without using an analogy or personifying the ions and molecules (referred to as anthropomorphism)? Use only the definitions of energetics and entropy when building your explanation.
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Meet The Creators
- Educator John Pollard
- Animator Andrew Foerster
- Sound Designer Devin Polaski
- Narrator Addison Anderson
