STEVE SPANGLER: All right. So the question today is how
quickly can you get the water out of the bottle. All right? It's a clever little trick. I want you to think of this
as not a plastic bottle, a one-liter bottle. Pretend like it was glass, so
you can't turn it over and just squeeze the water
out like this. You have to let it flow. How do you get the water
out of the bottle as quickly as you can? Well, take a look at this. You're pretty well limited by
the fact that as the water goes down, the air goes up. You have to remember it's
not an empty bottle. There's air inside the bottle. So how can we get the air to
come in and the water to come out exactly at the same time? If you could, the water would
come out pretty quickly. And I've got some ideas. I'm Steve Spangler. And I'm all about making
science fun. For the last 20 years, I've
been teaching ways to turn ordinary science experiments
into unforgettable learning experiences. I have an amazing team who will
do whatever it takes to affect the way people
think about science. And to do that, I live
by one motto. Make it big. Do it right. Give it class. Here's an idea. You could do this. If you watch very closely--
watch this. As you tip it like this,
the water comes out. The air comes in. You see this? The water comes out. The air comes in. That flow is pretty good. The problem is it's
not very fast. Water comes out. The air comes in. And then you just get mad,
and you just do this. But still, you're limited by
the fact that it exchanges. You almost want the air to come
in here and the water to come out here. And I've got a solution
for that, as well. Get yourself a drill. All right? So now, if you just stick a
tiny hole in the side here like this-- perfect. And then cover this up. Honestly, it's not a problem. Nobody will really care. Now watch this. If you turn it upside down,
and you do this, watch. The air comes in. The water comes out. The air comes-- now that's
pretty clever. However, you do have to carry
this around whenever you want to do the little science
experiment, so I would not suggest this method. There's an easier method. You just have to know something
about the science. And you have to create a vortex
inside the bottle. So you turn the whole
thing upside down, hand here on the bottom. And you spin. And as you spin, you create
this vortex inside. So as you release,
the air comes up. The water comes down. The air comes up. The water comes down. And you dump the whole thing
in about four seconds. So why is this little
trick useful? It's not. It's just a clever little trick
to do with a one- or a two-liter bottle. Or if you're a dishwasher, I
guess you could empty water out of a bottle or a container
very, very quickly. It was useful, however, for
a man by the name of Craig Burnham back in 1964 because
he invented one of the most popular science toys in
the entire world. And it's called a
tornado tube. Like so many good inventions,
it all started with play. And so Craig was playing
around in the basement. He was actually trying
to make an hourglass. So he had two glass bottles,
not these plastic one-liter bottles, two glass
apple juice jugs. And he wanted to find a way to
hook them together and to fill up, for example, with sand, so
that one would flow from top to the bottom. Didn't have any sand,
so he tried dirt. That's a good idea. Well, here's dirt. This is a great idea, right? So you got your dirt. Now you're just going
to shake it out. This is a horrible idea. Craig knew that. That's why he had to come
up with another option. This does nothing. So he had a better idea. Try using either salt
or possibly sugar. See, if you fill the bottle with
salt or sugar, then you don't get the clumping
with the dirt. When you turn it over, you
do get this great flow. The problem is mom shut this
idea down real fast because it's just too expensive. So Craig came up with a simple
solution, water. The problem was this. He just knew that the water
would go from one bottle to the next bottle too quickly
when he turned it over. At least that's what
he thought. So to slow the whole process
down, he used a metal washer. And the washer went right
on the top of the bottle like this. And the other bottle goes
right on the top. But the question is how do
you keep them together. Well, Craig used radiator
hose and clamps. And he was much smarter
than I am. A little duct tape
would be perfect. This is perfect. What you want to do is you want
to just wrap the bottle up like this. So this goes here. Now you just wrap it up, because
everything is better with duct tape. If it wasn't for duct tape,
where would the world be? This will be perfect. Why wouldn't this work well? All right. So there you have it. The bottles are hooked
together. The washer's in place. It's time for an hourglass. Just turn it upside down. Go. Go. Just go. And this is the problem
he discovered. It doesn't go. See, there's something
inside this bottle. Although it seems like it's
empty, there's air. And the air pushes up. And the water can't get down. And again, another
colossal failure. So he shook it in frustration
because he was mad that the whole thing didn't work. And that's when he made the
discovery that a vortex would appear inside, allowing the air
to come up and the water to go down. The air to go up, the
water to go down. It was the perfect little
toy if you were a kid. He made a tornado in a bottle. Well, fast forward 24 years. And you get this device here
called a tornado tube. It's actually a piece of plastic
that has threads on either side. But the inside is the secret. See that opening right there? It looks like a washer. That's because it is. It's modeled right after the
washer that he put in the first bottles. This simply goes over
the top like this. The other bottle goes
onto the top. And now, you have one
of the most popular science toys of all times. Craig introduced this toy at the
New York Toy Fair in 1988. It was an immediate success
because it was great. You could just use recycled
one- and two-liter bottles with a little connector
to create a tornado inside of a bottle. But as you look at this, there's
got to be more to do than just create a tornado
or a vortex in a bottle. In fact, some people have even
gone so far as to write a book about things you can do
with a tornado tube. I just came across this one
called Taming the Tornado Tube: 50 Weird and Wacky Things
To Do With a Tornado Tube, written by
Steve Spangler. Well, there's lots of
ideas in the book. But I've got to show you one of
my favorites, inspired by a kid who started with wanting
to color the air inside of the bottle. How do you color air? It's pretty simple. Dish soap. Well, you start with a little
bit of water inside and a couple drops of dish soap. And then you hook the
other bottle on top. The trick here is that you have
to shake it up first. Remember, her idea was
to be able to see the air inside the bottle. How do you color air? You don't really color air. But you can make something to
take up the space of the air. And this is what
it looks like. This got me to thinking. If you can define the space
where the air is, how could you color the vortex? Is there any way to be able
to differentiate the vortex from the water? It's in the pantry. So the object here is just to
define the difference between the water and whatever
else is inside. And just turn to the-- Higgins, what are you
doing in here? HIGGINS: We're still shooting? I thought we were on break. STEVE SPANGLER: Just
stay there. The secret, oil. I'll see you. The idea was pretty simple. Oil and water don't mix. And so if I wanted to find just
the vortex, maybe I could spin oil to the top and
allow that to go into the very middle. So suffice it to say, I picked
up a ton of oil as I was playing with this to try to see
if the oil and the water would work. See, you just turn the whole
thing upside down, and you spin it. As you can see, unfortunately,
this idea didn't work. The oil is too viscous. It doesn't flow down nicely. It doesn't define anything. I can't see what's going on. Maybe a different kind of oil,
or this oil, or this oil. I'll save you the headache. It doesn't work. There was only one solution. And it worked really,
really well. Well, the secret is oil. It's just not any oil that
you'll find in your pantry. That's because it's
colored lamp oil. See, I saw the lamp oil in the
department store and noticed that it's about the same
thickness, or has the same viscosity, as water. That was part of the problem
with the other bottle there is it was clogging. It was that bubbling. And it didn't seem to work. Watch this. This is just the lamp oil
at the top and the water at the bottom. It's colored. And you remember, you can't
color regular oil. So you have to buy it colored. Well, watch what happens
when you spin this one. You see, the lamp oil
helps define the vortex in the very middle. That way, you get a defined
red vortex as it works its way down. And it only cost me about $700
worth of all the oil that I experimented with to finally
come up with this idea. Well, this is cool. But we need more ideas. We need 30 ideas. And you don't have
a lot of time. So 30 ideas in 30 seconds. It can be done. Ready. Get set. Start the clock. Go. Pencil holder. Rolling pin. Cookie cutter. Monocle. Hearing aid. Eye patch. Necklace. Horse clappers. Water balloon inflator. Bongo drum. Squirting device. Straw dispenser. Bubble blower. Egg stand. Golf tee. Portable ant farm. Bracelet. Checkers. Jenga. Portable black widow habitat. Where's the spider? [BLEEP] Stilts. Door stop. Barbell. Ab roller. Chinese finger trap. Mantle decorations. Perfect muffin stand. Tooth pick holder. Table decoration. Birthday present. MALE SPEAKER: What am I supposed
to do with this? STEVE SPANGLER: Watch the
Spangler Effect to find out. Although we call it a
tornado, it's not. It's just a vortex. Tornado is actually when the hot
air rises, and a cold air front hits from the side. And you get these
swirling winds. Even though it's not a tornado,
everyone knows what you mean with these
swirling winds. And firefighters actually have
the same phenomenon. But they call them
fire tornadoes. You can imagine in
a forest fire how difficult that is to fight. But imagine a fire tornado
that's created and now spreads amongst the treetops, making
it super hard for firefighters to fight. We can recreate it here
using just some simple things around the house. Safety first. And you know not to
try this at home. Just watch the demonstration
here. This sponge and a little
bit of a lighter fluid goes on this. And this whole piece here
is a spinning table called a Lazy Susan. Now, watch what happens. If we were to light this on fire
and spin it, let's see if we can create a tornado
effect. Hot air rises. We have a rotating flame. But it doesn't give us the
tornado that we really need. What we really need is to
simulate the winds hitting that rising hot air to
cause a spinning, or that centripetal force. Now, at a science museum, they
use a very large screen, for example, and a rotating table. Believe it or not, the solution
here is as simple as a mesh trash can. The fuel goes down in the
very center here. And now we just need to make
sure that it's spinning in the very, very center to
give us our vortex. That looks perfect. You see, as it spins, it
catches that screen. And that screen now causes
that centripetal force. And you get this beautiful fire
vortex that shoots up just because of the rotation. Now you can see why this amazing
vortex of fire is so difficult for firefighters to
fight, because it literally can climb to the treetops,
causing a fire to spread very, very quickly because of
high, spinning winds and the fire tornado. With all this talk of
tornadoes, I do have one more question. Will it blend? [MUSIC PLAYING] STEVE SPANGLER: Safety first. That looks pretty good. Tornado tube smoke. Don't breathe that. Well, they blend. [MUSIC PLAYING] STEVE SPANGLER: And that's
for you, Tom. My wife's going to kill me. [MUSIC PLAYING] STEVE SPANGLER: Bird feeder.
