Question: what was your favourite science experiment to do in school?

Ciarán O'Brien answered on 20 Nov 2014:

I loved messing about with electromagnets in physics class. I used to make a huge mess with iron filings. One of the experiments was to put a wire running vertically through a hole in a sheet of card. You sprinkled iron filings around the card and then put a small current through the wire. that way you could see how electricity produced a magnetic field.

The guys at my desk found out that if we turned up the power a little more, the wire started glowing red hot, and you could use it to cut shaped in the card. We were quickly asked to stop when the teacher noticed the smoke coming from our bench 😀