The new series of Sky TV’s hit science programme Brainiac starts tomorrow, and there’s just one question on everyone’s lips: will they be faking the science as much in this series as they have previously?
At badscience.net you can find a very interesting clip from series two of Brainiac. It claims to show a lump of rubidium, and then a lump of caesium, each blowing up a bathtub: ‘Whether you’ve left school, or you’re still at school, you can still appreciate the sheer MAYHEM that chemistry can be!!!’ the presenter explains. ‘Bunsen burners! Mixing chemicals!’ Science!!! ‘Now, you may have been allowed to mix very small amounts of lithium with water.’ Yes. ‘You may, with a responsible adult, have mixed H2O with sodium. And you may, under strict “scientific” control, have witnessed potassium mixed with water. But the odds are, if you have’ – he reaches for a prop – ‘it will only have been on those … rubbish science videos!’ A box labelled ‘Rubbish Science Video’ is then burned on a Bunsen burner, using some big sciencey tongs.
Brainiac’s much better than those boring science videos.
Then we get to the action. ‘These next two are the dog’s nuts of the periodic table,’ he goes on, introducing rubidium and caesium. ‘Mix these two with water, stand back … and watch the MAYHEM!!!’ In the programme they are explicit about what they are doing. ‘Caesium, the emperor of alkali metals, particularly nasty, could go off at any time!’ ‘What’s that going to do when it hits the water?’ ‘Imagine a depth charge in a bathtub!’
That’s exactly what I’m looking at. I can see the black wire, connected to the detonator.
‘As our caesium sinks in the water, the rapid generation of hydrogen gas should produce quite an explosion!!!’ They drop the caesium in, and run for cover. ‘And it does!’ The bathtub is blown to pieces. ‘Yeeeeeesssss!’ gasps the presenter. ‘Only on Brainiac do you get that kind of … science!’ The dance music stops.
But what really happened? I have a Deep Throat: Brainiac’s ‘Dr Bunhead’, also known as Tom Pringle. He says: ‘Absolutely bloody nothing. The density of caesium ensured it hit the bottom of the bath like a lead weight. The sheer volume of water then totally drowned out the thermal shock-wave I was expecting to shatter the bath. This was an expensive filming day. They had hired part of Pinewood studios and had an ambulance and fire engine plus crew on standby. They could not go home empty-handed. So they rigged a bomb in the bottom of the bath (you really can see the black wire leading into the bath, if you watch the show again) and then blew the shit out of it. I must say, it did look cool, [but it] ate away at my conscience … I couldn’t do anything about it.’
If this was all faked, then what’s the point? Or rather, why do they make such a fuss about how they’re really doing science, and saying ‘the rapid generation of hydrogen gas’ caused the explosion, if it didn’t? Anyway, a Sky spokesperson said: ‘All of the experiments conducted on Brainiac have proven theory behind them. We aim to inform, excite and, above all, entertain our viewers with science method conducted in a fun and engaging way. We love big bangs and sometimes we’ll make an explosion bigger than we need to just because it’s fun but we always tell our viewers. We’re just about to start our fourth series, we’ve won several awards as well as the respect of educational professionals and we’re really proud to be sparking children’s interest in science.’ Sky say they tell people when experiments are souped up. They were unable to tell me if this experiment was faked or not (it was), and unable to confirm if viewers were told if it was faked (they weren’t).