Incredible Facts
Select topics from the contents below to find out some fascinating and incredible facts about them!
- Animal senses
- Are you Paying Attention?
- Computer Science Unplugged
- Captain Cook's First New Zealand Voyage
- Captain Cook's Second New Zealand Voyage
- Crystals
- Glassblowers
- Incredible Vision
- Incredibly Boney Bones
- Life on the Rocky Shore is Hard!
- Light Metals Transporting the World
- Life on Mars
- Why did the Moa grow so large?
- What is Colour Blindness?
- Slime
- Sport and Exercise
- The Internet
- Antarctica
Slime
An oozy, gooey polymer!
A polymer is a giant molecule formed by linking many small molecules together with chemical bonds. There are a great variety of natural polymers and synthetic polymers with various properties which make them to be used in different areas, e.g. packaging, flooring, piping etc. The polymer’s 3-dimensional structure (the matrix) determines its physical properties such as strength and softness.
Slime is a cross-linked polymer that is formed from the linkage of poly(vinyl alcohol) [PVA] with sodium borate decahydrate [borax] in water.
The figure below illustrates a part of the possible structure in 2-dimensions for Slime.
