This experiment is for advanced students.
Purple and white colors, making the whitewash that Tom Sawyer used, and produce an exothermic chemical reaction…..does it get any better?
Limewater is one of the compounds we work with in this experiment. Limewater was used in the old days of America. We’re talking about the 80’s…..the 1880’s.
Traveling medicine shows sold what was called “patent medicines”. These usually had no medicinal properties at all. The man in charge, the salesman of the operation, was called a “huckster”. He would have the one of the people gathered around to listen to him blow into limewater. Their exhaled breath contains carbon dioxide, and the lime water turned cloudy, just like in our experiment.
The man would hold up the glass with the cloudy limewater in it and pour in some of his fantastic remedy. As long as the “medicine” was acidic, it would turn the cloudy limewater clear. This was proof that the remedy would cure whatever ailed the person.
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