Tricks and treats

Science can be intimidating, esoteric and complex. But Soichi Nishimura makes this subject scintillating, hair-raising and rib-tickling. Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary meets this scientific entertainer who is opening up new horizons in scientific inquiry for the children of Dubai.

How can you pop corn without using any heat?

How come water doesn't leak from a perforated plastic bag?

How can a vessel full of of water be turned upside down without the water tipping out?

You might not have ready answers to these questions but Soichi Nishimura does. In fact he has the answers to just about every kind of science-related question that could occur to a 10-year-old. Well almost. Not only does Nishimura have the answers, he can also demonstrate them. He is, after all, a scientific entertainer.

Nishimura who is from Tokyo, Japan, likes to call himself a scientific entertainer. What exactly is a scientific entertainer? What does he do? Well, let's just say that he is a cross between Santa Claus and a maverick scientist, and he loves to present his shows to children in order to make science more easy to appreciate and understand. If in the process, he can stoke the fires of scientific enquiry in a young mind, then all the better.

Nishimura believes that science has no barriers and he is probably right because despite the fact that he speaks Japanese only, he is still a very popular scientific entertainer. His 'fun with science' shows address everyday aspects of science which are nevertheless a fascinating phenomena.

Invited for the fourth time to host the annual Sony Science Show in Dubai this month, Nishimura entertained about 3,100 children from 25 schools. He held three shows per day to allow as many children as possible to get involved. "Even if three out of the 3,000 children who attend the shows are stimulated and respond positively to the study of science, I think my hard work is worth it," he says. What helps empower his ambition is his unique knack of being able to instantly connect with his young audience. The children are on their toes as they watch him perform scintillating tricks and gain an understanding of the scientific logic behind the 'tricks'.

The one-hour show seemed to last less than a few minutes.

At Nishimura's show, an auditorium packed with 400 fourth graders rocked as the children yelled and clapped their hands in glee as Nishimura, speaking in Japanese, demonstrated some intriguing scientific experiments. Many of them were about everyday occurences that we don't give a second thought to, but which are truly scientific marvels. Nishimura's skills were so good, the children would've been able to understand the science behind the experiments even without a translator.

In a show lasting about an hour, Nishimura led his audience through many very interesting experiments, all based on basic principles of pressure, flight rotational path, specific gravity, static electricity, etc. Donning the persona of a fictitious cartoon character, Ninja Charlie, Nishimura, along with his helper, would first demonstrate an experiment and then provide a detailed explanation of how it works.

For the first experiment he threw a boomerang at the children. There was a collective gasp as the children instinctively ducked when the giant boomerang raced towards them only to make a wide U-turn and return to its thrower. When Nishimura caught the boomerang, a spontaneous applause rang out. 'How does a boomerang catch its own tail?' The children wondered. Nishimura explained that it is due to the shape of the boomerang - round with one wing slightly tilted and the other flat. The difference in the shape affects the air pressure as the boomerang moves on a rotational axis and travels back to the thrower.

The next experiment was with a bunch of balloons.

Nishimura asked a student to come up on stage and squeeze an orange peel over a balloon. In a few seconds, as the orange oil came into contact with the surface of the balloon, it burst with a bang. Oops! How did that happen? Orange oil and extracts of all citrus rinds, explained Nishimura, contain an element called d-lemonine that has cleansing and dissolving properties. So, when the surface of the balloon came in contact with this agent, the contact portion dissolved, thus bursting the balloon. (This scientific principle is now being applied in an eco-friendly campaign initiated by Sony to recycle styrofoam).

The 10 minutes that followed led to absolute glee as 'Ninja Charlie' went around the auditorium distributing balloons to children at random. A helper rubbed the orange oil extract on the balloons and within minutes, the auditorium resembled the venue for a child's birthday party as colourful balloons popped everywhere and merry music filled the air.

The children were in splits, some even wiping tears off their flushed cheeks. Then Ninja Charlie amped up the excitement.

He enrolled a young student in an experiment that involved her holding a transparent water-filled polythene bag over her head as he pierced the bag with sharp pencils. Not a drop of water spilled. Despite five pencils stabbing the belly of the bag, it held its shape. Uh? Plastics, explained Nishimura aka Ninja Charlie, are made of a long chain of polymers that give it stretchability. When sharpened pencils are pushed in at certain points, they slide between the molecular links, thus helping to completely seal the 'link' which practically makes the bag water-tight!

The next experiment was to make water disappear.

Nishimura poured water into a large jar and in just under a minute turned it upside down. Voila! No water! The students stared in disbelief. It was time for an explanation. Using a special televised image, Nishimura explained how a special powder (sodium polyacralate) was added to the water that turned it to gel.

This experiment demonstrated the principle of absorption where liquid was converted into a gel by changing its consistency. Something we see happening everyday in disposable diapers. (Aha!)

If this pushed the children to the precipice of belief, more was to come. The 'one-minute' popcorn toppled them into the abyss of the incredulous.

Nishimura asked a child come up on stage and hold a covered bowl of unpopped popcorn. Before the experiment could get under way, the bowl of corn kernels was shown one more time to the audience for validation. Then, without using heat or energy, and by just vigorously shaking the bowl up and down and across, the popcorn popped, ready to eat. The young volunteer happily munched away. OK, so does that mean we all have been wasting electricity and/or heat energy all these years when all that was required was to pump our arms? Well, not really. Science has a different story to tell. It's a case of relative specific gravity. The bowl was alternately layered with popped and unpopped corn kernels. The unpopped kernels which were in the top row, after the shake-up, sank to the bottom due to possessing a higher specific gravity. The popped kernels, which have a lower specific gravity, rose to the top. That's how you can serve 'one-minute' popcorn.

Okay, that was the popcorn break. On to more weighty matters.

We have all experienced static electricity on our clothes or while combing our hair. But Nishimura's grand finale was way more hair-raising. He asked every child and teacher in the auditorium to form a chain and link their palms. The result was a huge volume of human skin in 'contact' mode, leading to the build-up of a static charge so significant that when Nishimura held a static electricity charged object at the beginning of the chain, the whole line received a mild collective jolt!

The science show had come to an end and for Nishimura, it was time to receive a well-deserved standing ovation. For everyone in the auditorium, children and adults alike, the awesome power of science was revealed. That it was also entertainment of such high order was a revelation to many, probably to the adults as well who suffered science in school with silent terror.

For the adults of tomorrow, Nishimura is a gift. A science graduate from the Tokyo Science University, he has been deeply inquisitive about natural phenomena since his childhood. So after his graduation, when he got an offer to do this show, he was only too happy, his knowledge of science and his natural knack for performing, making him the perfect man for the job.

In the last 15 years, he has held hundreds of shows in Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and now Dubai. With every new show he looks to introduce something novel, as well as bringing everyday scientific marvels to imprint them on young minds.

"I am planting a seed in the child's mind," he says. He is immensely gratified when science students come up to him and confess that it was his show that compelled them to pursue this subject as a lifelong passion and career. "I consider that a great achievement. That I am able to influence a student (humbles me). Although science requires serious study, the show is a wonderful way to introduce complex concepts in an entertaining way. I love the creativity these shows call for and really enjoy doing them."

Nishimura researches his topics through books and the internet and then works on simplifying the concepts for his audience. "It's the novelty of the presentation that stimulates young minds. I think schools should have some kind of 'fun with science' classes at least once a year so children can get hooked.

"All the experiments I conduct on stage are doable at home."

He believes that if children are encouraged to perform these experiments at home, they will benefit immensely, not only in terms of heightened self-confidence, but also in logical thought.

Nishimura plans to host the Sony Science Show in Dubai every year.

As his shows gain popularity, schools are booking him in advance.

To read about more demonstrations, log on to www.sony-mea.com/sonyscienceshow.