Translucent Effect (Experiment)

Good morning! Here is a cool experiment. Materials you need:

• A sheet of white paper
• Oil 
• A straw
• A torch or some source of light
• Thread
• Scissors
• Sellotape
• A dark room or place in the house
• A member of your family can help
• Notebook

Procedure

1. Cut a piece of thread and stick it to the paper. Hang the paper to the ceiling in front of a wall (if it's dark better) and leave it there 15 cm aprox from the paper to the wall.

2. Light the paper with the torch and observe how light can pass to the other side. Write this on your notebook. Can light pass to the other side and hit the wall?

3. Using the straw, put some oil on the paper. Be careful and don't drop it to the floor. Half of the paper should be covered with oil. The oil will be absorved and it will spread along the paper. In the end the lower half of the paper should have oil.

4. Light the paper over the oil part. Compare with the other part.

Write your conclusions about this. Why does this happen? Have you seen something not normal?

Enjoy! 😊😎

Explanation:

Only opaque objects, by blocking light rays, form shadows. Paper is not opaque. It is translucent. The paper blocks much of the light rays. The oil, by penetrating into the fibers of the paper, creates small transparent cracks that let light through. This is not the case with water, which cannot easily penetrate between the common paper fibers.

Watch the video: