The 50 junior infants from Salterhebble Primary School in Halifax sat in rapt attention as they waited for the promised exploding custard. In attendance on the first full day of the week-long British Association for the Advancement of Science festival in Leeds, they waited as the scientist at the front of the lecture theatre lit a blow torch and started spooning custard powder into a funnel attached to a bicycle pump. The fact that when the fireworks did come it was more of a whoosh than a bang in no way disappointed the visitors from Salterhebble who started pounding their desktops in appreciation.
The role of the BAAS is to promote a better public understanding of the glories of science, although science comes in many guises as was seen yesterday during the exploding custard lecture provided by Mr Ian Russell of Interactive Science Ltd. "Did you know that explanations are designed to make people stop thinking," he asked his audience, before adding that he wasn't going to give any explanations for his science experiments, constructed out of plastic mineral bottles, balloons, string and, of course, custard powder.
"Science isn't just about boring people talking," he assured the Salterhebble junior infants, as he made an old syrup tin blow smoke rings at a lit candle, eventually snuffing it out. Every experiment had some scientific concept hidden away. He created "electric fleas" using no more than an empty plastic cassette box and a handful of confetti, but never once attributed the magic to static electricity.
Boyle's gas pressure laws were well concealed when he made "clouds" appear in a large mineral bottle.
And only at a BAAS event would a combination of Rice Krispies, water and washing up liquid get away as science, with not a mention of how surface tension made the whole thing work. Mr Russell launched a bottle full of water and air across the room to a thunder of approval and demands for a repeat performance, which of course were conceded. Pink water, made by soaking a red cabbage, turned redder by adding vinegar and then blue by stirring in bicarbonate of soda.
Then he launched a balloon, pumped up by a mixture of vinegar and bicarbonate, while warning the front row to keep back unless they wanted to get sprayed. If this was science, clearly Salterhebble was ready for more, and even 70 minutes wasn't enough.
